[080] The Eileen Chang
Legacy (09/29/2007) As you might have noticed, productivity at
this website fell off the past couple of days. Blame it on <Lust,
Caution> and the attendant public attention as well as other developments
with respect to Eileen Chang. (In case you don't know, this blogger is
presently administrating the business affairs of his mother Mae Fong Soong
who inherited the literary estate of Eileen Chang, who wrote the story
<Lust, Caution> upon which Ang Lee's movie was based.) On the
comment below about Eileen Chang's wigs (and I have no idea how Chou
Feng-ling was given access to some of the information), there is a proposal
for an exhibit (or even a permanent museum) of the belongings of the late
Eileen Chang (wigs and all) in mainland China. Elsewhere, there is the
continuing case of Crown Press versus a number of mainland Chinese
publishers over violation of the copyrights of the works of Eileen
Chang. That legal case has spilled from the courthouse into a media
war (see

张爱玲侵权诉讼).
Under these prevailing atmosphere, can the belongings of Eileen Chang go on
tour in mainland China without being taken to be part of the media
war?

This media war is asymmetrical because Crown Press has all the facts, whereas
the mainland Chinese publishers only have conjectures and speculations.
The war can be made even more asymmetrical if more information about Eileen
Chang is released to the public. Certainly, a tour of the belongings
would fall into this category. But there are many, many other things
that will astound.

As a tease, here is one tantalizing piece of information. In October
2006, <Book City 書城>
magazine began to publish the series of 84 handwritten letters between 1966 to
1994 from Eileen Chang to Chuang Hsin-cheng (莊信正)
(see China.com.cn).
Huadong Normal University Professor Chen Zishan considered these letters to
be an important event in advancing the study of Eileen Chang.
"Apart from the unpublished letters between Eileen Chang with Stephen and
Mae Soong and her aunt/uncle, this is probably nothing as important as
this."

Among the belongings of Eileen Chang, there are more than 30 original letters
from Chuang Hsin-cheng to Eileen Chang between 1983 and 1994. Wouldn't
it be nice if this was re-united with what Chuang has published? For
example, here is
the Christmas card that H.C. and Gloria Chuang sent to Eileen Chang in
December 1994.

周芬伶)
recently published a new book titled <The Sorrow and Pain of Eileen Chang
-- A Critical Review of Eileen Chang>. This book used text and
photographs to show the various possessions of Eileen Chang, from wigs,
brand-name cosmetic products to fashion wear, shoes and valuable handwritten
manuscripts. Everything is there. Chou Feng-ling called for the
establishment of an Eileen Chang Museum so that more Eileen Chang fans can
view her valuable possessions. Shockingly, the fashionable Eileen
Chang shaved herself bald in her final years.

<The Sorrow and Pain of Eileen Chang -- A Critical
Review of Eileen Chang> used many photographs to show various possessions
that have never been shown in mainland China. The reporters was
surprised to find that there were several wigs of different sizes and shapes
among her possessions. Yesterday, Professor Chou Feng-ling told the
reporter that Eileen Chang suffered from a dermatological disease in her
final years and was forced to shave her head bald. "She loved to
look pretty, so she would never let anyone see her bald-headed.
Therefore, she bought many wigs to wear." In 1994, Eileen Chang
received a lifetime achievement award from China Times and she sent her last
photograph to the newspapers in which she wore a green sweater with white
patterns. "Actually, Eileen Chang was wearing a wig at the
time. She was already bald-headed." Life is a beautiful
gown on which fleas are crawling." This was a famous saying from
Eileen Chang, but Chou Feng-ling told the reporter that her research showed
that Eileen Chang suffered from a psychological dread of fleas.
Whenever she gets anxious, she felt that the room was full of fleas.
Her dermatological and psychological problems distressed her a great deal.

Apart from the wigs, the book also showed the various
clothes that Eileen Chang had worn ... The book also showed the various
cosmetic items that she used ...

Among the photographs of the handwritten manuscripts, many
of them are written on the back of envelops: "Eileen Chang would just
pick up an envelop and start writing on the back and front. When
everything is covered up, she would write on the next envelop."

During the interview, Chou Feng-ling told the reporter
that after Eileen Chang passed away, her possessions were all given to her
good friends Stephen and Mae Soong. These possessions were transported
from the United States eventually to Taiwan. Crown Press had held a
small-scale exhibition after which these possessions have not appeared
again. "Actually, these possessions have great value for academic
research, especially those handwritten manuscripts because it is possible to
directly observe the inner progress of Eileen Chang." Chou
Feng-ling said not without some regret that the outside world does not know
where these valuable possessions are being kept. "It could be
with Mae Soong, or it could be with Crown Press."

Chou Feng-ling said that she hopes that there could be an
Eileen Chang Museum at which the possessions of Eileen Chang can be
systematically and scientifically be displayed in order to satisfy the mass
of Eileen Chang fans. The location could be in Taiwan or Hong
Kong. But it would also be great if it is in her hometown of
Shanghai. Chou Feng-ling is making a call through this report for
everybody to support the establishment of such an Eileen Chang Museum.
Shanghai Huadong Normal University professor and Eileen Chang expert Chen
Zishan said that mainland scholars support this proposal from Chou
Feng-ling. "If the possessions of Eileen Chang can come to
mainland China, it will definitely be a good thing for mainland fans of
Eileen Chang."

The Tuen Mun District Council Poverty Relief Group asked
Lingnan University to study the unemployment situation in Tuen Mun and
learned that the principal reasons are low education level and lack of
technical skills. According to the report, Lingnan University
professor Ho Lok-sang recommends that the government impose a minimum wage
at a 'reasonable level' such as 'HK$6,000 per month' which 'will not
necessarily impact the employment rate.' This was enough to shock this
writer.

Is Professor Ho aware that the Hong Kong Law Society set
the minimum wage of interns at HK$6,000? Barristers defend justice for
the public and they believe that the salary of university law school
graduates could be as low as HK$6,000. So how come it is
"reasonable" for workers who "have low education level and
lack technical levels" to have a minimum wage of HK$6,000as well?

I am opposed to minimum wage because of this kind of
anti-intellectual logic. If the minimum wage is to realize the dignity
for those with no education and technical skills, then it is also trampling
upon the dignity of those who possess the education and technical
skills. If a middle-age woman comes from northwestern China not
knowing Cantonese and having no education and skills can earn HK$6,000 per
month in Hong Kong, then why would the grassroots parents living in public
housing estates ever want their children to study hard? Their children
will surely protest: What is the point of studying? After studying law
for three years, we are still earning less than HK$10,000 per month; if we
get an associate degree, we may earn HK$7,500 while the government expects
us to pay 8% interest on the HK$100,000+ loan that we took out and which we
may never be able to repay. So why not just finish Form Five, drop out
and get a job as a telecommunication company salesman?

But even if there is a minimum wage, certain grassroots
organizations will not be satisfied. The Catholic Labor Affairs
Committee is holding a "family wages" campaign which said that the
reasonable wage level should be at least equal to the "family
wage" that can meet the basic needs of the entire family. Thus,
the employer will have to pay a married employee twice the salary of a
single employee! If a Hong Kong person is smart, he should not bother
with working overtime to make more money; instead, he should be working hard
with his wife every night to pro-create -- if he has eight children, then
this family of ten will be earning HK$60,000 per month! There is even
a "Civil Alliance To Fight For A Minimum Wage" that calls on
citizens to complain about any job that pays less than HK$30 per hour.
I was brought up to think that I earn for the amount of work that I do, and
I cannot understand why the way to obtain higher wages is to protest in the
streets as opposed to working harder! If there should be a minimum
wage, then the workers will only work harder to protest more to raise the
minimum wage level instead of working harder and improving their skills and
knowledge.

In retrospect, it is a waste of social resources to set up
a minimum wage out of "pity" for those without the education and
technical skills. In the early 1980's many young women were still
working in the garment manufacturing industry. As the factories began
to relocate to China, the demand for such laborers decreased. First,
they lost the overtime work; then they had difficulty finding any
employment. The parents and teachers recognized that the garment
industry was a sunset industry and they told the next generation to stay in
school to acquire better education and skills. It was a gradual
process back then. But if they had imposed a minimum wage at the time,
more young people would have continued to enter the factories because the
wages were still attractive. But the wages would result in higher
costs, and this would only accelerate the relocation of the factories to
mainland China. In the end, many workers would have been sorry to have
joined this industry because there were no more jobs. This is the same
problem with the bar benders, because more and more construction projects
are using pre-fabricated units made in China for the cost reasons.
Even if the housing market recovers, the demand for bar benders is not going
to increase. The minimum wage can guarantee only the minimum wage, but
it cannot guarantee that the workers will find work!

The government can provide welfare such as subsidies for
those with low income in order to assist those without technical
skills. These workers can survive and they will also recognize that
they need the education and skills if they want to improve their lot.
A minimum wage will disrupt the system that allocates social
resources. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The
minimum wage represents a slow death by poisoning; it will only numb the
grassroots workers and their next generation.

Q1. Are you paying attention to the pan-democratic
forum to select a candidate in the Legco by-election?39%: Yes
52%: No
9%: No opinion

Q2. Anson Chan participated in this pan-democratic forum. Do you
think that she is representing the pan-democrats or her own self in this Legco
by-election?52%: Pan-democrats
38%: Herself
10%: No opinion

Q3. Are you satisfied with the pan-democrats' selection mechanism for a
candidate?27%: Satisfied
38%: Dissatisfied
35%: No opinion

Q4. Will Anson Chan be able to set up a communication platform between the
central government and the pan-democrats?38%: Yes
56%: No
6%: No opinion

Q5. Will the participation of Anson Chan in this Legco by-election cause
her relationship with the central government to ...27%: become better
42%: become worse
16%: stay the same
15%: no opinion

... Frankly speaking, neither person performed well.
After the debate, Ma Ngok rated Anson Chan as being incapable of shedding
her Chief Secretary style and he was being kind. Anson Chan kept
emphasizing the need to communicate with the central government and her
specific policies were identical to the recommendations from Donald Tsang:
the minimum wage law depends on the results of the campaign to guarantee
wages; for environmental protection, she proposed to require that waiting
vehicles must have the ignition turned off; she agreed that public servants
deserve wage raises ... what is the difference between her and Bowtie Tsang?

She spoke about the Legislative Council vote on July 4th,
and said that June 4th will be vindicated someday. But there was just
no way that she could bring herself to say whether she would vote to
vindicate June 4th if she were elected to the Legislative Council. No
wonder that a Democratic Party member laughed and said: "It was
fortunate that Mrs. Chan said that. If this was one of my party
members, Uncle Szeto Wah would have disciplined her." When the
highly esteemed Professor Kwan once said that Hong Kong must dropped the
baggage of June 4th in order to fight for democracy, there was a huge
storm. The Civic Party had to come out to explain on behalf of
Professor Kwan. At that year's June 4th candlelight virgil, Professor
Kwan had to arrive early to show that he has not wavered in his position
that June 4th must be vindicated. For the people of Hong Kong, June
4th meant a lot more than July 1st. Perhaps Mrs. Chan has been a
government official too long and she has been waffling through these
sensitive subjects. But if she is coming out to stand for election,
the hardcore democrats are not going to let her waffle her way through these
major issues!

As for how Anson Chan was repeatedly attacked by Dr. Lo's
sarcastic barbs, a pan-democrat said that Mrs. Chan has already exceeded
expectations by finishing what she wanted to say within the time limit and
without falling apart. It was not easy to ask a 60-something-old lady
and a senior official who has never faced questions from the public to
finish such an election forum.

As for Dr. Lo, his relentless hounding tactics sent Anson
Chan into disarray. But he made the same mistake that Alan Leong did
in his second Chief Executive debate in that he did not know how to hold
back. During the second half of this debate, he went over the
top. According to a labor union person, he thought that Dr. Lo was
winning at first when he went after Anson Chan. But when Dr. Lo began
to talk about how he was sorry about being a Legco member in the functional
constituency, how he wanted to start anew, how hard it was to fight for
democracy, how many years Aung San Suu Kyi
was imprisoned and so on, this person felt that it was "very fake"
and "very opportunitistic." Unless you have taken the path
of democracy and underwent those experiences, you should not say those
things. When Szeto Wah or "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung say
it, it sounds stirring and tragic; when Dr. Lo says it, sorry, it is
imitative and only sounds fake.

No matter what, there is only a long shot for Anson Chan
not to win in the pan-democrats' selection process. The remaining
quesiton is whether Anson Chan's performance tonight is good enough to beat
Regina Ip? If she offered tonight's policy platform again, Regina Ip
will surely ridicule her: "Why did you bring Donald Tsang's policy
platform here tonight?" In terms of debate techniques, as long as
Regina Ip does not get too aggressive, she is bound to be better than Anson
Chan because she had the experience of debating the pan-democrats on her own
over Article 23. When the two ladies face off each other next time,
Anson Chan will find it even more difficult. No wonder that even as
the pan-democrats kept praising Anson Chan tonight, they also slipped and
said that they need to meet quickly to review the performance in this
debate.

In October 2006, Li Jun began to work on the computer
virus "Joss-stick burning panda" and asked Lei Lei for
advice. Lei Lei thought that the virus was modifying the icon of the
infected documents without disguising itself and it was therefore easy to
detect. Therefore he recommended Li Jun to work on disguising the
virus.

In early December 2006, Li Jun began to sell the virus on
the Internet. He asked Wang Lei and other netizen friends to assist
him. When the "Joss-stick burning panda" virus began to
propagate quickly on the Internet, netizens found themselves auomatically
connected to Li Jun's personal website (www.krvkr.com). When Wang Lei
learned of the huge traffic volume at the website, he proposed a 50%/50%
deal with Li Jun to profit from advertising.

Meanwhile Zhang Shun purchased the access from Li Jun's
traffic and posted nine pieces of "trojan horse" malware on the
server to steal the " online game folder" on the computers of the
visitors. Then Zhang Shun sold the information for profit.

In February 2007, Li Jun, Wang Lei, Zhang Shun and Lei Lei
were arrested by the public security bureau. Wang Lei and Zhang Shun
gave back their loot while Li Jun turned over his ill-gotten gains as well
as the tools to clean out the "Joss-stick burning panda"
virus. On September 24, 2007, the court sentenced Li Jun, Wang Lei,
Zhang Shun and Lei Lei to 4 years, 2 years 6 months, 2 years and one year in
prison respectively. The sentence is considered lenient in view of
their cooperation.

[073] Halloween Bash
At Hong Kong Disneyland (09/25/2007) Not to let Ocean Park
steal all the public attention (see Comment 200709#069),
Disney has its own television commercial that has been the target of
complaints. So far, the Television and Entertainment Licensing
Authority has received 34 complaints against the Disneyland ad versus only
24 against the Ocean Park ad.

In the ad, two teenage guys got a teenage girl to enter an eerie hotel in
which the piano plays by itself, the bed and bathtub vibrate on their own,
the tap turns itself on and so on. The teenage girl fled while she
kept looking back if something was following her. When she got out of
the hotel, it was the two teenage guys outside who were scared because the
girl's head had turned 180 degrees around in the manner of the movie <The
Exorcist>.

[072] More Than Two
Decades Later (09/25/2007) In the early 1980's, I began to
read the essays of Lung Ying-tai. In 2003, I started the
EastSouthWestNorth blog and I began to translate the essays of/about Lung
Ying-tai. Here is a partial listing:

Notwithstanding your belief, I have never met her in person
or even corresponded with her in any manner or fashion all this time.
That was until the Hong Kong premiere of Ang Lee's film <Lust,
Caution>. While it is for certain that I knew who she was, it was
news that she knew who I was (namely, the person who does these unauthorized
translations of her essays!). I don't like personal photos on this
website, but this is one for memories -- from right to left: Lung Ying-tai,
Rebecca MacKinnon and moi, with champagne glasses in hand (courtesy of
Salvatore Ferragamo). May this be a toast to a long friendship ...

[071] The
Pan-Democrats' Forum For The Hong Kong Legislative Council By-Election
(09/25/2007) Here are some reactions from Chinese-language political
bloggers about the first forum held by the pan-democrats for the Hong Kong
Island Legislative Council by-election. The two pan-democratic
candidates were former Chief Secretary Anson Chan (aka Lady Conscience and
Goddess of Democracy) and Lo Wing-lok, vice-chairman of the League of
Socialist Democrats.

For the League of Socialist Democrats who stand up for the
grassroots and vulnerable social groups, this was an important
evening. The performance of their vice-chairman Lo Wing-lok exceeded
expectations. He may be a petit bourgeois, but he was able to express
the ideas of socialist democracy fully. Whether it was truthful or
not, or whether it was pleasing or not, when have the ideas of socialism
been so thoroughly articulated?

If Lo Wing-lok's performance was somewhat over-the-top,
the officious tone of old Mrs. Chan was even more disappointing. When
the former administrative officials Regina Ip and old Mrs. Chan talk their
unbearable officialese, we will prefer to remember this forum on the first
night of the campaign ...

Mrs. Chan had gone into retirement for a while. From
her preliminary performance tonight, the "training" given to her
by the pan-democrats is not very effective. She was tongue-tied many
ties, and her responses on key questions were off the point. The
questions from the professors were clearly premised upon the
"pan-democratic" viewpoint, but her responses could hardly move
the pan-democrats; in fact, they would be counter-productive with respect to
the middle-of-the-road voters.

Of course, Lo Wing-lok continued with the League of Social
Democrats' style by evading the issue. But since Mrs. Chan was clearly
unprepared, Lo Wing-lok's bravado achieved the strategic objectives.

Mrs. Chan's preparation tonight was disappointing.
Tonight's outcome was the worst thing possible. The strategy of the
pan-democrats consists of one mistake after another. This was hurting
Mrs. Chan, this ruined the whole political show and it benefited Regina
Ip. This was extremely disappointing.

Second half:

The questions from the audience forced Lo Wing-lok to deal
with the "suddenly long-hair" issue. But the questioners
lacked debating skills, and so Lo Wing-lok continued with his "what is
right today was wrong yesterday" logic and completely evaded the
issues.

Mrs. Chan did not improve on her performance. But Lo
Wing-lok made some mistakes, so the situation got better for her.

Conclusion:

The first mistake of the pan-democrats was to insist on
holding this forum. Their preparation was totally inadequate compared
to that of the League of Socialist Democrats, and they were defeated by Lo
Wing-lok. On the various policies, they repeated showed the wrong
policy goals which will only help Regina Ip to win over the
middle-of-the-road voters. In terms of the political parties, the
League of Social Democrats were able to elevate the status of Lo
Wing-lok. If the Democratic Party and the Civic Party insist on
holding this forum, then why won't they send their second-tier teams
out? In terms of political moves, the mainstream pan-democrats have
made one mistake after another. They may strike out and lose
everything.

If they can't even beat Lo Wing-lok, how can they beat
Regina Ip? If Mrs. Chan's election campaign team does not get a new
set of people, the situation is worrisome indeed.

[070] Hong Kong By The
Numbers (09/24/2007) (Oriental
Daily) (1,693 persons 18 or over were interviewed by
telephone. Note: I have been previously interviewed by Oriental Daily
and it was through an automated computer voice system. That means that
there is no proper respondent selection in the sense that the person who
picks up the telephone is interviewed)

Q1. Three different newspapers had the same photograph
of a nude female soldier, but the Obscene Articles Tribune came up with
different classifications. What do you think?39%: The classification is not systematic and reflects individual
subjective judgments
23%: There are no standards for classifying.
14%: There are frequent problems that become scandals and jokes
10%: There is nothing wrong with the classification system and this is just an
isolated case
14%: No opinion

Q2. Many newspapers published the same sexy photograph of a British
model. The Obscene Articles Tribune made different classifications and
the Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority prosecuted some
newspapers but not others. Why?41%: The departments' classification processes are chaotic
21%: The departments are making selective prosecutions
18%: The departments are sloppy in their work, and they committed mistakes
11%: This is just an isolated case
10%: No opinion

[069] Halloween Bash
At Ocean Park (09/24/2007) (Ming
Pao) Recently, Ocean Park began screening two television
commercials concerning its Halloween bash event. These commercials
were scheduled to air after 9pm in the evening. You can see the
original commercials at YouTube
(note: the ones that are shown have less frightening ghosts).

In one commercial, a mother scolds her son: "You have been held back in
class again. What ghosts made you so stupid? What ghosts made
you so lazy? What ghosts made me give birth to you

又留班，鬼叫你蠢、鬼叫你懶、鬼叫我生你?"
The father at the table suddenly became a paper figure who cried out:
"Objection! I did not make any such request!"

In the other commercial, two female students were riding a bus when one of
them began to vomit. The other said: "Hey, what kind of ghosts are
you vommitting?
喂，你嘔乜鬼呀？"
Then a ghost appeared and began to blow kisses at the first girl who ran away
screaming.

The translation is tricky because the word 'ghost' 鬼
is unique to local culture and for which nothing comparable exists in
English. Proper English would have been: "Why are you so
stupid? Why are so lazy? Why did I give birth to you?"

Yes, but so what? According to the Television and Entertainment
Authority, 20 complaints have been filed against these commercials because of
the "scary content" which is frightening to small children.
Advertising industry professionals are saying that the culture of complaint is
getting worse in Hong Kong, and creativity is being restricted by these
frivolous criticisms.

[068] The War Between
The Spiritual Blessing Gangs (09/24/2007) (LSZ at Ming
Pao)

The prelude to the Hong Kong Legislative Council
By-election war between the two ladies will commence tonight with a debate
between former Chief Secretary Anson Chan and League of Socialist Democrats
vice-chairman Lo Wing-lok. Meanwhile, former Secretary for Security
Regina Ip is getting to ready to announce her own candidacy on
Thursday. Most citizens are looking forward to watch a "good
show." But the Donald Tsang administration takes a different
view, because this contest has more drawbacks than benefits for them.
They even comment sarcastically that these are "political spiritual
blessing gangs" deceiving the citizens who yearn for universal
election.

The democrats who persuaded Mrs. Chan to enter the
election has emphasized repeatedly that supporting Mrs. Chan in the
by-election equates showing to the Hong Kong SAR government and the central
government the desire of the people of Hong Kong for universal suffrage in
2012. This is a great opportunity for Hong Kong citizens to show their
desire for democracy.

But some members of Donald Tsang's team are
pessimistic. A senior official who had worked with both women said
that there will be an ugly war over the next two months. The reason
why it will be ugly is that the two are too familiar with the workings of
the government as well as each other. When they both worked as
government officials at Lower Albert Road, they left 'bite marks' on each
other. They will be trying their best to win this time, for public as
well as personal reasons. If a "crisis" should arise, they
may use negative propaganda to attack their opponent. No wonder that
the government insider said that using "female mud wresting" to
describe this war between the two women will be no exaggeration.

A core member of the Donald Tsang government said
privately that Mrs. Chan will surely win in his opinion as an expert, most
likely by more than 10% of the votes. A big victory by Mrs. Chan will
make it harder for the Donald Tsang government in the future.
Specifically, the chances of success in political reforms for universal
suffrage will be even more remote.

They tended to believe thatthe democrats who pushed for
Anson Chan to compete against Regina Ip are the ones who really do not want
to see universal suffrage in Hong Kong. The government believes that
certain 'democrats' think that 'the fight for universal suffrage' is the
spring of their political lives. If universal suffrage should ever be
implemented in Hong Kong, these people will have nothing to fall back upon
because they will no longer have any means to attract the voters. As
such, they needed Hong Kong to continue to have an antagonistic and
confrontational political atmosphere. Therefore, they did their best
to put Anson Chan whom Beijing trusts least to run against Regina Ip whom
Beijing trusts very much. They also decided to elevate this Hong Kong
Legislative Council by-election to a major choice between democracy and
undemocracy.

This Donald Tsang government insider said with
despondency: over the next year, Mrs. Chan may assume the role as the
"new goddess of democracy" to lead
the movement for universal suffrage and increase the
level of antagonistic politics in Hong Kong. The party lines will be
clearly demarcated. In their views, there is no chance that Beijing
would let Hong Kong have universal suffrage under these circumstances.
Donald Tsang is therefore wasting his time with the Green Paper and any
associated consultations. This person smiled and said: "Universal
suffrage in 2012? You better kiss it goodbye!"

According to the US
Census, the number of active duty and reserves is 1.4 million (or
about 0.7%). The number of veterans is 13%.

Could Zogby International have been interviewing only armed forces
members? No, they said "samples are randomly drawn from telephone
CD's of national listed sample." If they said that they used
these listed samples and they had a response rate comparable to similar
studies, then there is a mistake somewhere because this is an impossible
result.

[066] Taiwan
By The Numbers (09/23/2007) (UDN)
(723 adults interviewed on September 22, 2007. A random sample of
telephone numbers was drawn from the Taiwan telephone directory and then the
last two digits were randomized)

Support levels for presidential election candidates:

Hsieh/Su (DPP)
27%: 08/13/2007 when the Hsieh-Su team was finalized
22%: 08/14/2007 when Ma Ying-jeou was found innocent at the initial trial
for the special fees case
27%: 09/22/2007 when Hsieh/Su were not prosecuted for their special fees
cases

Ma/Siew (KMT)
40%: 08/13/2007
52%: 08/14/2007
51%: 09/22/2007

What is the impact of the prosecution of DPP leaders Lu, Yu and Chen?
24%: Positive impact for DPP
22%: Negative impact for DPP
25%: No material impact for DPP
27%: No opinion

Did the judiciary use the same standards to judge Ma Ying-jeou and the DPP
leaders?
46%: Different standards
20%: Same stanards
31%: Cannot decide

Concerning the decision not to prosecute DPP presidential candidate team of
Frank Hsieh and Su Cheng-chang,
25%: Satisfied with outcome
39%: Dissatisfied with outcome
31%: No opinion

[065] The
<Lust, Caution> Charity Premiere (09/23/2007) A
complimentary ticket from HKU JMSC admitted me to the premiere of <Lust,
Caution>. The event was a charity premiere presented by Salvatore
Ferragamo and I got to see Ang Lee, Tang Wei and Wang Leehom from afar.

It is known that my father had given the English-language name of <Spy
Ring> to this short story. However, the film is being presented in
the literal translation of <Lust, Caution>. The reason why my
father choose <Spy Ring> was that the story included a ring of amateur
spies and the critical moment in the film depended on a diamond ring.
While the title <Spy Ring> might be literally interesting, it is not
good marketing strategy because of title confusion. Instead, <Lust,
Caution> is a unique proposition. After all, Ang Lee won an Oscar
with the seemingly incomprehensible title of <Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon>.

When the premiere guests were invited into the screening rooms, they were
asked to turn in their mobile telephones for safekeeping. In return,
they got a receipt which would allow them to retrieve their mobile
telephones when they leave. Here is the photocopy of my receipt:
Yes, I was 007. But my name is not James Bond ...

There was also a programme for the guests. I am happy to say that I
got an honorable mention for giving permission to use the handwritten
manuscript page (see

What about the film itself? Oh, haven't you notice that I don't do film
reviews here, even though I watch hundreds of movies a year? Those who
have read my old restaurant reviews (which I don't do here either) can only be
grateful that I shut up.

[064] The
Zogby International Poll on U.S. Opinions on Taiwan
(09/22/2007) (Zogby
International) (1,205 persons interviewed from listed telephone
numbers in USA (note: about 60% of telephone numbers in the USA are unlisted
-- that is why professional survey organizations usually use random digit
dial (RDD) methods). The cooperation rate is unreported, but it is
claimed that it is 'comparable to other professional public opinion surveys
conducted using similar sampling strategies.' WARNING: To the extent
that they won't give you a number, it arouses suspicion that something is
being covered up. It is very simple -- just say 'the response rate was
XX%, which is comparable to other professional public opinion surveys
conducted using similar sampling strategies.' Why won't they tell us
what XX is?)

You can read the the whole thing yourself.

I read Q1
("How familiar are you with country of Taiwan?") and found these
results:
6%: Very familiar
33%: Somewhat familiar
27%: Not very familiar
34%: Not at all familiar
1%: Not sure

Then I found it impossible to reconcile this with many of the results that followed
this question.

For example, the two key questions that are getting played up by the Taiwan
Government Information Office (see, for example, Liberty
Times) are:

Q14. At present, Taiwan is not a member of the United Nations. Taiwan
should be offered membership in the U.N.
24%: Strongly agree
31%: Somewhat agree
18%: Somewhat disagree
9%: Strongly disagree
18%: Not sure

Q15. If the people of Taiwan pass a referendum to join the U.N., then
the United States should not oppose Taiwan's petition for membership for the
U.N.
33%: Strongly agree
37%: Somewhat agree
11%: Somewhat disagree
6%: Strongly disagree
13%: Not sure

From Q1, 39% of the people are very/somewhat familiar with Taiwan but 61% are
very/somewhat unfamiliar with Taiwan. Nevertheless, 82% and 87% of these
people are willing to offer their opinions on Q14 and Q15. Those who
offered answers but previously stated that they were unfamiliar with Taiwan
had only the lead-in paragraphs to go by. Can those issues be reduced so
simply?

Thus, suppose someone just told you that she is not familiar with
Taiwan. She probably cannot locate it anywhere on a map. After
all, she comes from a country in which 20% of the people think the United
Kingdom is in the Middle East, or that Canada is one of the states inside the
United States of America. But you
ask anyway: "At present, Taiwan is
not a member of the United Nations. Taiwan should be offered membership
in the U.N." Are you sure that you want her
ill-informed answer? What good will that do for you? You will
probably get comparable levels of response from Americans if Taiwan was
replaced by Chechnya, Macedonia, Scotland or Tasmania in the question.

Why does the Taiwan Government Information Office want to commission and
publish this kind of stuff? They want to create the impression that the
majority of American citizens support Taiwan for U.N. membership. And
since the United States of America is the home of democracy and freedom, the
will of their people will be respected and followed by their democratic
government. Why else are American soldiers dying in Iraq if not to obey
the will of their people (of which only about 60% want withdrawal from Iraq)? But the second that
you explain to these American citizens that this might lead to nuclear war
with China, where do you think the suppport levels will go? "Oh,
but you didn't tell me that ...?"

Addendedum: Comment 200709#067 in which the
United States of America turned out to be an armed camp filled with trained
killers ...

[063] Taiwan
By The Numbers (09/22/2007) (TVBS)
(1,036 persons age 20 or over interviewed by telephone on September 17 and
19, 2007. A random sample of telephone numbers was selected from the
telephone directory, and then the last four digits were randomized)

Q1. If the presidential election were held tomorrow, which team are your
likely to vote for:30%: Hsieh/Su (DPP)
53%: Ma/Siew (KMT)
17%: Undecided

Q3. Regardless of whom you vote for, who is more likely to be
elected as president in 2008?20%: Frank Hsieh
43%: Ma Ying-jeou
37%: No opinion

Q4. Regardless of whom you vote for, do you like Frank Hsieh? 8%: Like a lot
26%: Like somewhat
22%: Dislike somewhat
17%: Dislike a lot
26%: No opinion

Q5. Regardless of whom you vote for, do you like Ma Ying-jeou?14%: Like a lot
41%: Like somewhat
15%: Dislike somewhat
9%: Dislike a lot
21%: No opinion

Q6. Who is better at promoting the peaceful development of cross-strait
relationships?14%: Frank Hsieh
53%: Ma Ying-jeou
2%: Both
5%: Neither
25%: No opinion

Q8. Who is better at maintaining political stability in Taiwan?20%: Frank Hsieh
48%: Ma Ying-jeou
3%: Both
7%: Neither
22%: No opinion

Q9. Who is better at elevating the interational status of Taiwan?22%: Frank Hsieh
49%: Ma Ying-jeou
3%: Both
4%: Neither
22%: No opinion

Q10. Who is better at promoting harmony among people of different
provincial origin and ethnicity?23%: Frank Hsieh
48%: Ma Ying-jeou
2%: Both
8%: Neither
19%: No opinion

Q11. Whose government team will be less corrupt if elected?22%: Frank Hsieh
40%: Ma Ying-jeou
8%: Both
9%: Neither
21%: No opinion

Q12. Whose government team will be better at building up Taiwan if
elected?33%: Frank Hsieh
38%: Ma Ying-jeou
6%: Both
2%: Neither
20%: No opinion

Q13. Who is better at protecting the interests of the people of Taiwan?29%: Frank Hsieh
39%: Ma Ying-jeou
7%: Both
4%: Neither
21%: No opinion

Q15. The Democratic Progressive Party has ruled for the past eight
years. Do you think that it is time to have a president from a
different party?66%: Yes
17%: No
17%: No opinion

[062] Complimentary
Copy (09/22/2007) I just added a few more entries into What Is On My Bookshelf.
In so doing, I was surprised to find this note attached to
Qian Zhongshu (

錢鐘書)'s
也是集.
The note was signed by Ma Lik, the late chairman of the DAB party in Hong
Kong.

How did Ma Lik know my father? My father never told me
about Ma Lik, but I will leave three conjectures (without offering any
evidence):
(1) Both my father and Ma Lik are specialists in the Chinese classical novel
<Dream of the Red Chamber>. Thus, they must have minimally read
each other's works.
(2) It is well known that my father had a tutor-friend relationship with Qian
Zhongshu in Shanghai, and therefore Ma Lik sent a complimentary copy of the
book to my father.
(3) My father's belief as stated to me was that he and his friend Eileen Chang
were major targets for China's Department of Unification. Any statement
from my father or Eileen Chang in support of the People's Republic of China
would have tremendous propaganda value given their previous positions as
stalwart anti-Communists.

謝韜)
published an essay titlted <The Democratic Socialist Model and the Future
of China> in the magazine Yanhuang Chunqiu (炎黃春秋).
Recently, he spoke at Hong Kong University.

Xie Tao said that the Chinese problem can be described by
three words: haste, wait, push. One cannot be hasty; but one cannot
wait either; so one has to push forward. The Communist Party is
heading in the right direction towards constitutional democracy in small
steps. It is impossible to take big steps, and those slow steps will
result in many small steps that turn out to be big changes twenty or thirty
years later.

"Old people like us will not be able to witness those
big changes twenty or thirty years later. We will be dead by
then. Those people who are in their 30's now will have gone through
two decades of struggling. They are not bounded to the old system and
they will have their new ideas. By the Twentieth Congress of the
Chinese Communist Party, there will be big changes. Although we won't
be able to see them, we can keep pushing foreword. As long as we are
alive, we will say what we have to say. I have weathered many storms
over several decades. I joined the Party sixty years ago, and I was
one of the earliest teachers of Marxist theory in China. I am in my
late years and I do not have many days left in my life. If I do not
speak the truth about what I experienced during my lifetime, I ought to be
ashamed for myself. Before meeting God, I want to leave behind a few
truth words. Such are my feelings now."

... The essay The Democratic Socialist Model and the
Future of China> was written in 2006. During discussions with
friends, Xie Tao foresaw that there would be a huge impact because of the
questions that were raised. Under the long-term censorship, such
problems cannot be discussed openly, because it is a very grave issue to
negate the thoughts of Mao Zedong, Lenin and Stalin. He had to be
extremely careful and so he held the essay back. But somehow someone
posted the essay on the Internet and it spread quickly. At the time,
he was in Chengdu and quite unaware of what was happening. But a
friend at Yanhuang Chunqiu called him up and asked to publish the
essay with some minor editing of certain sharp and sensitive language.
So he agreed.

"Before publishing the essay, the editors studied the
situation and they were prepared to deal with three types of
situations. First, the supervisory department would close down the
magazine. They were prepared to hire a lawyer and fight it in
court. Secondly, this particular issue of the magazine would be
banned. This has indeed happened before. Therefore, the editor
began distributing the magazine before the scheduled date. Thirdly,
the supervisory department would ask the editors to make a self-examination
or otherwise apply pressure with suitable methods."

But there was no official response from the supervisory
departments for five months until the People's Daily published a response to
a reader's inquiry about the essay. The central government
communicated the following about this essay: it will not be disseminated; it
will not be re-published; it will not be criticized; it will not be argued
over with the media. However, individuals are entitled to express
their views.

"This was unexpected but also the best possible
response that we could have. The essay was viciously attacked by the
traditional leftists. There were a dozen criticism meetings during
which we were accused of subverting the Communist Party, socialism, the
state constitution and the Party constitution. But none of these were
reasoned criticisms. They were just Cultural Revolution-style
criticisms."

"Over the various historical movements in China, we
built our sense of history through our personal experiences. Many
people are reflecting on this history, including certain cadre leaders
inside the Party. These are the rational thoughts that a normal and
healthy person ought to have. I am just one of these people.
Over the decades, China nurtured these types of people. When we were
young, we sincerely worked for the Revolution and we sincerely tried to
defend it. In our last years, after weathering the storms of several
decades, we want to say a few truthful words and explore the future through
the historical truths."

(Linfen) is listed among the world's ten most polluted
places of 2007, according to the New York-based nonprofit Blacksmith
Institute. Linfen sits at the center of China's prodigious coal
industry, which is largely unregulated by the government. Residents describe
choking on coal dust, and local health clinics have reported an upsurge in
bronchitis, pneumonia, and lung cancer, according to the institute.

Linfen was listed as at number 3 among the nine most
polluted cities in the world according to National Geographic
magazine. In the discussion of Linfen's severe pollution problem,
National Geographic reported: At 10am, the sun is invisible even though
everybody knows that it is overhead; when tourists walk in the street, their
clothes are covered with soot; the water is malodorous and brownish black
with white foamy bubbles on top; the rate of birth defects leads the world
in recent years.

Linfen city mayor Li Tiantai expressed his "strong
dissatisfaction and protest" against the report. Shanxi
pronvincial environmental protection agency deputy director Wang Jinglong
said that Linfen has gotten rid of the label as the worst polluted city in
China earlier this year. Year-to-date, the total number of Class II or
better days has exceeded the grand total for all of last year. The
local government officials said that National Geographic ignored their
efforts to improve air quality and they indicated that they wanted to sue
National Geographic.

When Linfen mayor Li Tiantai was interviewed, he expressed
his "strong dissatisfaction and protest."

Early morning yesterday, Mongkok Police District special
services squad detectives received a tip and proceeded to stake out an
Internet cafe. Twenty-five minutes later, the target male person
showed up and went to visit a baccarat-gambling website that was hosted
overseas. The detectives rushed up and placed the man under arrest.

The suspect was a regular visitors at this Internet
cafe. He visits two to three times a week, spending one to two hours
each time. Reportedly, he is a restaurant worker who did not want to
use the Internet at home because his family might find out that he was
gambling. Therefore, he used an Internet cafe instead. During
the action, the police took away one computer, a piece of paper that
recorded HKD 80,000 in bets, a piece of paper that recorded the sequence of
outcomes and a credit card that was believed to be used for payment.

Under Hong Kong law, anyone who places a bet with an
illegal betting organization (whether it is located inside or outside
of Hong Kong) is committing a crime. The initial offense can
draw a penalty of HKD 10,000 in fines and 3 months in jail; additional
offenses can draw a penalty of HKD 20,000 and 6 months in jail.

According to a legal expert, it is hard for the police to
gather evidence about illegal Internet gambling. Usually, they have to
go undercover and watch the suspect making a bet. Then they have to
retrieve the IP address from the Internet cafe's computer. Then they
have to ask the Internet servive provider for the pages that the suspect had
visited. This legal expert recommends that the government should issue
regulations for Internet cafe to stricly record the personal identity
information of the users and the times when they were on the Internet.
However, he admits that it is difficult to carry out because the users don't
want to feel that they are being watched.

[058] Arigigato
China (09/20/2007) (Daqi)
China rises? A great nation requires more than the hardware (military,
economy, etc) but it also must have the accompanying software (civic
quality, etc). On September 17, in Hangzhou's Huanglong stadium, Japan
played Germany in the Women's Soccer World Cup. The 40,000 mostly
Chinese spectators were virtually one-sided on the side of Germany.
Whenever, Germany attacked, they cheered; whenever Germany stopped the
Japanese attack, they clapped. When Germany scored, a huge German flag
appeared in the stands. The unfriendliness of the Chinese spectators
towards the Japanese reflects a certain unhealthy attitude that had been on
display repeated in the past.

Next year, the 29th Olympic Games will take place in Beijing. Chinese
and Japanese athletes will be competing against each other. If the
Chinese spectators continue to display these anti-Japanese sentiments, it
will damage the international image of China as well as Sino-Japanese
friendship. The purpose of the Games is the pursuit of excellence AND
the promption of international friendship and world peace. To boo
specific teams is against the spirt of sports and will earn the condemnation
of world opinion.

In the Germany-Japan game, the Japanese women were praiseworthy. They
lost the game and were eliminated as a reult. After the game, the
Japanese players poured out into the field and took out a banner which said
"Arigato

谢谢 China" -- Thank you, China in three languages.
Then they bowed to the spectators, who stood up and applauded them. May
this be an example for the Beijing Olympics.

In the hearing over the Starpix agency photographs of Kelly
Brook on a Caribbean beach that Oriental Daily/The Sun published and that the
Hong Kong Television and Entertainment Authority/Obscene Articles Tribunal
found to be Class II: Indecent, witnesses testified that during the same
period: (1) the overseas magazine NOW showed the same photographs in which
Kelly Brook's breasts were not covered up with pixels as Oriental Daily/The
Sun did with their photographs. However, NOW was never rated by TELA/OAT
even though it was on sale in Hong Kong; (2) on the same day when Oriental
Daily/The Sun published their photographs, a similiar Kelly Brook photograph
appeared in Apple Daily. Upon review, TELA/OAT found that to be neither
indecent nor obscene.

During the hearing, the TELA lawyer said that just because these other cases
were not prosecuted does not mean that they were not illegal. The
Oriental Daily/The Sun lawyer said: "In that case, you are saying that
there is selective prosecution. This is very serious. I will use
the fact that this was a dishonest prosecution and ask for a permanent stop to
the hearing." The TELA lawyer said: "Perhaps there was no
prosecution due to lack of evidence, or perhaps the case was not detected ...
I am just saying that we do not know why these other cases were not found to
be indecent. Therefore, the magistrate should not use them as
reference." The magistrate showed his concern: "If the
classification is based upon commonly accepted moral standards in society,
then why shouldn't this case be compared to previous cases classified as
indecent? Even if the NOW case should not be used for comparison, but we
have the extreme situation that Apple Daily has a similar photograph but was
classified as neither indecent nor obscene. When I assess this case, can
I make that comparison?"

Perhaps the key here is an article back in March 2006 in Oriental Daily (see link)
which quotes the TELA/OAT opinion:

The two publications involved in the case used an eye-catching
photograph of a nude female body accompanied by provocative captions. The
pixels only covered the nipple, but the shape of the breasts and the curvature
of the body were clearly visible. The captions include
"Life-threatening nudity" and "Showing off bare breasts" and
the texts refer to "cavorting half-naked with boyfriend on the beach"
and "semi-nude liberation" and other provocative terms.
Accordingly, it was determined that the article has an obviously pornographic
effect overall."

Apparently, the presence of the photographs themselves are
not fatal per se -- it is the accompanying captions and text that created the
"obviously pornographic effect overall." Oh, wait, but this is
completely opposite to the philosophy articulated in the case of Oiwan
Lam in which two female nipples were automatically pornographic
irrespective of the accompanying context.

[056] Hong
Kong District Council Elections Preview (09/20/2007) (Ming
Pao; also at Yahoo!
News) The nominations for the Hong Kong District Council
elections will begin next Tuesday and the elections will be held on November
18. There are 405 seats in the District Councils.

DAB: Four years ago, the two DAB Legco members Lau Kong-wah and Yeung
Yiu-chung lost in their bid for District Council seats. Even DAB
vice-chairman Yip Kwok-him lost to the parachuted Cyd Ho by 64 votes in the
Kwun Lung district (Sai Wan) that he had served as District Councilor for
more than 10 years. This year, the DAB will be fielding not more than
200 candidates, fewer than in 2003.

DP: In 2003, the July 1st effect allowed the Democratic Party to have 80% of
its candidates to be elected. This time, DP will field about 110
candidates, of which 70 are running for re-election and 40 are first-time
candidates most of whom have more than one year in local district
experience. The principal goal is to defend the seats that they
already held.

CP: The Civic Party will field about 40 candidates in their first attempt in
the District Council elections.

Savantas: The think tank headed by Regina Ip will field two or three
candidates in Hong Kong Island.

LP: The Liberal Party will field about 60 candidates, of which 20 are
running for re-election and 40 are first-time candidates.

ADPL: The Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood
will field 35 to 40 candidates, of which one-quarter are first-time
candidates. As usual, their focus will be in the western Kowloon.

[055] More
About The Corpse In The Bag (09/19/2007) See Comment
200709#052 for previous story. The Filipina woman Armia denied
at first any knowledge or involvement. However, the police showed her
the surveillance video tape in which Armia drove a scooter with a two-wheel
trailer 12 kilometers away from her home and dumped the bag which contained
the corpse.

(TVBS,
UDN)
38-year-old Filipina Armia Nemencia Panaglima has now given a confession to
the police, "The description of the killing was consistent with our
examination of the victim. Accordingly, the prosecutor believes that
the Filipina is the murderer." The public and the victim's family
had their doubts because Armia is 155cm tall compared to the 160cm tall
victim. The victim was stabbed at least ten times. There were
marks of strangulation around her neck to the point where her tongue was
sticking out. However, the fatal blow was a 13cm deep stab wound in
the left chest. According to Armia, the motive was a dispute over the
agency fee that the victim wanted to charge Armia's husband for the language
lessons, to the amount of NT$50 per hour (out of the total of NT$1,500 per
hour). And did Armia have the strength to commit the murder, tie the
corpse up, stuff it into a bag and haul it away for dumping?

(TVBS)
Meanwhile, what was the role of Armia's American husband David Michael
Fillon? He was arrested and held for almost 12 hours, released to
return home for 12 hours, asked to return for more questioning and released
to return home again.

TVBS: Did you kill anyone.
Fillon: No. I did not. I did kill anyone.
TVBS: You know nothing?
Fillon: I don't know anything. I don't know.

(UDN, UDN)
According to investigators, Fillon was asked about the blood stains behind
the sofa at his apartment. He claimed that he cut his hand
accidentally while peeling fruit. When the police informed him that
the DNA test showed that the blood matched that of the victim Chou Mei-yun,
he turned silent. He also claimed to have a bad sense of smell, and
therefore could not detect the odor from the corpse.

Fillon's explanation was that he had too much to drink and fell
asleep. Therefore, he had no idea what happened. Armia's story
was consistent with that explanation. She said that she asked Armia to
come over and they had an argument over money. Chou slapped her and so
Armia killed her with a kitchen knife in anger. Afterwards, she
dragged the corpse into the storeroom. Since Fillon always returns
home drunk in the early morning, she purchased duct tape and garbage bags
and stuffed the corpose into the bag. She also washed away the blood
stains and hair in the apartment, and then applied air freshener to the
room. Then she borrowed a trailer and carted the body away for
disposal.

On August 20, a story entitled <The Accidentally Exposed Lie> on
<The Human World> told the following story. A dozen years ago in
Liuchang village, Qingzhen town (Guizhou province), the villager named Li
Tingfa ignored medical advice and had a baby with his infirmed wife.
The baby turned out to be sickly too. When the wife asked to see the
baby, Li borrowed a healthy baby from his neighbor Gu Xinlong to show
her. Twelve years later, the wife accidentally discovered the truth
and her illness deteriorated. Meanwhile, Li's own son could not
forgive his father for the deception.

Another reporter wanted to follow up on the story and called Jiangsu
Satellite TV for the contact information. He was told that there was
only a bank account to accept donations, but no contact telephone.
Since it was noted that the person named Li Tingfa resided in Liuchang
village, Qingzhen town, Guizhou province, the reporter went there on August
26. At the time, the computer network at the police station was
down. So the reporter called the leaders at the two dozen or so
hamlets within Liuchang village. None of the leaders recognize the
names of Li Tingfa or Gu Xinlong. Three days later, the reporter
contacted the police station by telephone and was told that there was no
such persons. On September 4, the reporter went to the identity card
section of the Qingzhen city public security bureau and observe that when
the name Gu Xinlong was searched, the answer was "No such
person." When the name Li Tingfa was searched, there was a young
man born in 1992. When the search is extended to the entire Guiyang
city, these people still could not be found.

When the reporter contacted with Jiangsu Satellite TV with his information,
he was told that he would be called back. He is still waiting for the
call.

[053] Hong
Kong By The Numbers (09/18/2007) (HKU
POP) (1,016 persons in Hong Kong were interviewed by telephone on
September 4-7, 2007 about their opinion towards Taiwan and their appraisal
of past Chinese leaders)

The Kaohsiung Police Bureau said yesterday that a female
Japanese teacher working in Taiwan has been questioned after a woman's body
was found in a garbage bag in Kaohsiung City early on Sunday morning.
A man found the body inside a large black garbage bag in front of a store in
the city's Yencheng District. The man told police the bag had been
abandoned on the street a few days ago and that stray dogs had been hanging
around the bag ever since. The man told police that he cut a hole in
the bag and was surprised to see a human leg. Police on Sunday said
the deceased was 48-year-old Chou Mei-yun (

邱美雲
), who had been missing since last
Tuesday.

...

Police said footage from a surveillance camera near the
place where the body was found showed the Japanese teacher riding a scooter
and towing a big black garbage bag. But during questioning the suspect
told the police that she had loaned her motorcycle to an American man.
Chang said the teacher had had frequent cellphone contact with Chou before
she disappeared. Police suspect the deceased might have argued with
the Japanese woman about brokerage fees before the incident, Chang said.

There has been a major breakthrough in the case of Chou
Mei-yun. The American English-language teacher David Fillon is
suspected of having a financial dispute with Chou and murdered her together
with his Filipina girlfriend Armia (or Malina). Although David Fillon
is a suspect, the American Institute of Taiwan requested the
"protection of his human rights" and therefore the police has not
declared the case to be solved as yet.

According to the police, the corpse of Chou Mei-yun was
discovered at around 8pm on September 15. Upon review of the community
surveillance camera videotape, the police observed a female on a motorcycle
disposed the bag at around 11pm on September 14. The police used the
motorcycle license plate number to locate the Japanese female owner, who
said that she had loaned the motorcycle to the American teacher David
Fillon.

On the afternoon of September 17, the police obtained a
warrant to search the apartment of David Fillon. They learned that
Fillon had just moved away, but they found many blood stains as well as dog
hair similar to those found inside the bag that contained the corpse.

The police then asked the Japanese woman to call Fillon to
ask him and his girlfriend to come in and collect their wages. When
they showed up, the police arrested them.

Photograph of David Fillon being questioned by Kaohsiung
police

The newspaper reporters also canvassed the neighborhood
for impressions about David Fillon. He is supposed to be consorting
with various women, including a steady Filipina woman plus Taiwanese women
and even girls that speak Japanese. Usually, Fillon is cold and
distant and does not speak to people. He always appears sloppily
dressed to be in a bad mood. He drinks a lot, especially Taiwan beer:
he says that loves Taiwan and therefore he drinks Taiwan beer.
According to the convenience store worker, Fillon usually comes in the
morning for breakfast and then a 12-pack of beer at night.

[051] Taiwan
By The Numbers (09/18/2007) (UDN)
(901 adults interviewed by telephone on September 13, 2007. A sample
of telephone numbers was drawn from the Taiwan telephone directory and then
the last two digits were randomized.

Q1. Would you like to see our country join or re-join
the United Nations?54%: Yes
10%: No
34%: No opinion

Q2. Are you aware that President Chen Shui-bian is
pushing for a referendum to "join the United Nations under the name of
Taiwan"?77%: Yes
21%: No
2%: No opinion

Q3. Do you agree or disagree with a public referendum
of "joining the United Nations under the name of Taiwan"?43%: Yes
31%: No
25%: No opinion

Q4. Are you concerned that the referendum to join the
United Nations may damage Taiwan-US relationships?39%: Yes
39%: No
20%: No opinion

Q5. Under the circumstance in which the United States
is publicly opposing the referendum in Taiwan to join the United Nations, is
it necessary for the government to insist on holding the public referendum
to join the United Nations?30%: Yes
42%: No
27%: No opinion

The Hong Kong Democratic Party hired a public relations
person to present a new image of itself. The first effort is the
placement of advertisement on restaurant paper mats. For the first
wave, about 30 restaurants have signed on. Shortly after the campaign
began, one restaurant chain store received a customer complaint about loss
of appetite as a result of seeing the picture of Democratic Party
members. That may or may not be the real reason for the
complaint. In any case, that restaurant has withdrawn from the
campaign. The advertising agency has found other restaurants to
substitute. Apart from this odd affair, it is an open question about
the advertising effectiveness of this kind of ad campaign.

In Baotou, 3000 students kneel down for Li Yang who teaches
"Crazy English"

English is no doubt the most important knowledge tool at
the moment. I cannot say about any other occupation, but if you want
to be involved media, then you are short-changing your job if you don't read
English-language publications. The reason is that the majority of
information and opinions are written in English. With so many people
using English in so many places around the world, it is no exaggeration to
say that English is the most democratic language. Even if God should
try, there is no way to force the English-language world to shut up
collectively about a certain matter. This is a blessing to those who
seek the truth.

Thanks to the position of English among the languages of
the world, England can rely on the Queen's accent to reap huge
profits. Many English people are endowed at birth with a skill -- even
though many of them have local accents, who is going to be able to tell once
they get out to Asia? Therefore, when I asked by a number of middle
school students what the most important subject is, I gave them the simple
answer that they should try to learn English world. Before they can
pass the reading/speaking/listening parts of English before they graduate
from high school, they will be welcomed even if they never attend
university. Those people who think that the Chinese language is the
best in the world should not be angry. You listen to my explanation:
no matter how wonderful Chinese is, someone still has to translate all that
marvelous stuff into English to benefit the world -- there is money to be
made to facilitate communication in different language. So your job
prospects will be fantastic.

English is so useful. Furthermore, there are free
lunches everywhere. In an age with broadband Internet access, there
are innumerable free opportunities to learn English. If you want to
learn British style English, you can read The Guardian and Financial Times;
if you want to learn American style English, you can listen to NPR and read
the New York Times and Washington Post. You will be just like a local
in your pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. After spending
the unavoidable several thousand hours, your English will be fluent.
You do not have to pay people like Li Yang. He takes your money and
you have to kneel down and thank him for his graces. If he thinks that
people should kneel and give thanks, then it is him who ought to thank the
students who are paying their fees and feeding him. If everybody uses
these free methods to learn English, he would starve to death.

Concerning the public kneeling incident, Li Yang is
feeling great. He is recently advocating that female university
students should cut their hair to show their dedication as his
students. But somehow he did not ask the same of male university
students. Fortunately, the female university students know that the
length of one's hair is not related to the level of mastery of English and
they refused. If Li Yang gets with this one, he could be trying to
play the "Symphony of Intercourse between Yin and Yang" in order
to infuse the spirit of the English language into the bodies of the
students.

The English-language cult of Li Yang shows that any
language is just a tool. If used well, it can provide excellent
information. If used for brain-washing people, it gets people to kneel
down and cut their hair. Language-learning entails rationality,
self-control, dedication and repeated practice. It is simple and
straightforward, but no shortcut. You should not hope for any genius
who can enable you to advance in a flash. To kneel down to an unknown
crazy orator is sheer ignorance which is detrimental to improving your
learning skills and rational thinking. You must stay away from these
kinds of so-called "teachers." You learn English for the joy
of more knowledge and thinking. We are already unmatched in the art of
kneeling, and we don't need to learn English in order to master it.

In order to save Li Yang and prevent his ailment from
worsening, he should make use of the free resources to learn English.
Otherwise, he could go crazy beyond all help.

In Hong Kong, three newspapers (Ta Kung Pao, Wen Hui Po
and Sing Pao) were charged with publishing a Class I: Indecent photograph of
a topless female British soldier. Ta Kung Pao and Wen Hui Po admitted
fault and paid their fines. Sing Pao refused to plead guilty and
contested the classification. Upon review by the Obscene Articles
Tribunal, the photograph was reclassified as Class I: Neither Indecent Nor
Obscene, and Sing Pao was not guilty. Too bad for the first two
newspapers that pleaded guilty so hastily.

Another classical landmark case when a news agency
photograph of model Kelly Brook appeared on December 12, 2005 in Apple
Daily, Oriental Daily and The Sun. The Television and Entertainment
Licensing Authority charged only the latter two newspapers but not the first
one.

Q1. Concerning the two different judgments with respect to
the photograph of the female soldier, what do you think about the standards
used by the Obscene Articles Tribunal?
38%: chaotic and unstandardized
29%: there is no system in forming adjudicators, who make judgments based
upon subjective opinion
14%: frequent problems that are embarrassing and controversial
10%: there is no problem with the review process as this is just an isolated
incident

Q2: The Obscene Articles Tribunal once classified the
statue of David as 'indecent' while the Television and Entertainment
Licensing Authority classified classical literature as problematic.
What do you think about these organizations?
44%: They are poor quality for they cannot tell the difference between art
and pornography
28%: They are afraid of being criticized and so they send anything and
everything over for review
15%: They wear colored lens through which everything is seen as indecent
8%: No opinion
5%: They did the right thing

Q3. The Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority
has been accused having a obsession-compulsion to be sexually pure, and they
even review certain substantive reports. What do you think?
43%: The Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority is running scared
and they will take action as a result of a few complaints
26%: The TELA system is ridiculous
12%: TELA does have a obsession-compulsion to be sexually pure and they will
review everything
9%: There is no problem with what they are doing
12%: No opinion

Q4. What are the consequences if TELA continue to send out publications for
review and prosecution without any principles?
36%: The complaint system will be abused
26%: It is an international joke that will affect the image of Hong Kong
22%: It interferes with the freedom of press and the development of culture
7%: There is no problem with the present review system
9%: No opinion

Q5. How can the present Obscene Articles Tribunal system
be improved?
41%: Re-establish clear standards for adjudication
27%: Install an accountability system with penalties for misjudgment
20%: Re-train the Obscene Articles Tribunal adjudicators
5%: There is no problem with the system and no improvement is necessary
7%: No opinion

[047] Taiwan
By The Numbers (09/17/2007) (China
Times) (780 adults were interviewed on August 22-23. A
sample of telephone numbers were drawn from the telephone directory, and
then the last two digits were randomized)

Q. Which country is most important for Taiwan?
United States of America: 31.5%China: 25.1%
Japan: 4.5%
Don't know: 35%

Q. Can Taiwan trust the United States of America?Yes: 29%
No: 37.5%

Q. If China invades Taiwan, do you believe the United States will help to
defend?Yes: 40%
No: 44%

A few days ago, I spoke to friends about media work.
He said, "Actually, we are all reactionary in our thinking but slavish
in our behavior. What does that mean? It means that deep down
inside, we are all dissatisfied with the authorities' policies towards the
media. Even the propaganda department officials who wield power have
divergent views. But if those views were articulated publicly, they
would be considered 'reactionary.' In practice, nobody dares to
overstep. Everybody carries out the duties accordingly. It is
one thing for the running dogs to do so. But we are media workers who
have contemporary ideas, and therefore this is painful to us. You may
think that we usually sound like democrats who petition for justice for the
people, but we actually continue to write paeans for the authorities.
We do not express our true feelings, but we say the opposite instead and
against our conscience. Is there anything worse than not being to
speak our minds or articulate our own voices?"

"Oh, oh." I smiled bitterly over so many
grievances. After working in the media for so long, we have all become
mental eunuchs who think differently from what we write. This is an
abnormal social formation. Who is to be blamed? I once tried to
interview a group petitioning in front of the provincial government
office. The crowd yelled: "Which one of you have the courage to
report on this case?"

I did not reply. But I knew that I did not have the
courage. My report will be reviewed by the director and the chief
editor. Certain sensitive issues would be banned immediately. It
was not my decision to make. Indeed, before even the superiors got to
review what I wrote, the newspaper issued a notice from the propaganda
department: "Articles about the issue of petitioning shall not be
published."

So you see that when we face these media bans, all our
sympathy and enthusiasm are annihilated. These bans turn all the
ideals of journalism into nothing. They made us become aware that
there is no freedom of press in China. Having worked in media for so
many years, I have come across many bans. Some of them were clearly
communicated to everybody, such as the speeches by the leader, the inside
story about a state law, Taiwan is not a country, the responsibilities of
the various state leaders, etc.

On one occasion, we listed the city party committee
leaders in the wrong order and we were admonished. Another time, a
reporter dared to publish the "dissenting opinion" and drew a
"yellow card" ... other bans were communicated orally from the
propaganda department or other supervisory agencies, such as certain big
disasters in our province, big criminal cases, corrupt behavior by
government officials, or even the rise of pork prices, etc. None of
those could be reported because they could arouse panic among the public,
etc. This is how the bans works.

A similar situation exists outside of our province.
It is the same thing in each and every city/province of China: there is no
freedom of press. A Guangzhou newspaper colleague said:

"There are two notice boards in front of the
office. The weekly topics, meeting memoranda, the administrative
notices and the editorial arrangements are posted there. In addition,
there are all the ban orders. Guangzhou and Beijing are the two sacred
founts of Chinese media. There are more elite workers there, and
therefore there are many more ban orders. How much? It is a
regular chore to post those ban orders every day. Sometimes, there is
one list a day, but there could be as many as two or three lists per
day. It is a stirring sight to see the lists of ban orders over
several days. There are usually two classes of ban orders: those from
the central propaganda department and those from the provincial propaganda
department. Since the Southern Daily group is a provincial level
entity, the Guangzhou city propaganda department has no jurisdiction.
By inference, Guangzhou Daily must have at least 50% ban orders than the
Southern Daily group ...

When I was working in Morning News, there were new ban
orders every day. The chief editor would announce them in a serious
manner at the daily meeting. When the department head goes back to the
department office, he will repeat them. But over here, nobody takes
these ban orders seriously to the point that I am perplexed. The ban
orders are of all sorts, but they seem to fall into the same areas: mass
incidents, major criminal cases, cases with bad effects, problems with local
enterprises, etc. But there are also some incomprehensible ban
orders. For example, a few days ago, a teacher died while trying to
attempt to save students. This should be a positive story, but all
reporting was banned.

Another oddity is that the Guangzhou media are
over-developed and they reach everywhere. No matter what happens in
China, even if it is 10,000 miles away from Guangzhou, they manage to appear
in the ban orders for Guangzhou. Most of these ban orders do not come
from the central propaganda department. Instead, they come from the
provincial propaganda department. One can conclude from this: the
ability to maintain a good relationship with the provincial propaganda
department has a decisive influence on whether some negative local news
elsewhere will be published.

According to a Beijing colleague, there is someone who
made it a business is to collect these ban orders. The plan is to
collect them and send them out to be published overseas. At first, I
was curious as to who could possibly be interested in such things.
Then I quickly realized that these things are the truest historical record
of a nation. Oh, there is even a record that is more true: the Xinhua
agency's <Report on national activities>. This is a totally
secret report where the number of people authorized to access it is not more
than two digits.

So you see that under these ban orders, reporters are
becoming increasingly more "reactionary" even though their actions
are becoming more conservative. But there is no doubt that the lack of
freedom of press is the source of sadness among Chinese media workers, who
are become schizophrenics as a result.

[045] Thou
Shalt Obey Traffic Rules (09/15/2007) (Daqi)
On the Qinghai-Tibet highway, the following road sign was set up to remind
people about the possible consequences of not following traffic rules (such
as speed limits, etc).

[044] Hong
Kong Police Sweeps (09/15/2007) (Apple
Daily) This is day two of the Hong Kong police clean-up of
illegal brothels in the Western Kowloon district. Today's net saw a
bizarre twist beyond the usual assortment of underaged prostitutes and
Internet-enabled pimps.

In an old building located at 275 Shanghai Street, there was an apartment
which is about about 400 square feet in area with about 100 square feet
being a kitchen area. The kitchen has 3 cooking stoves. There
was also a large amount of food, such as vegetables and meat in the kitchen.

Yes, but so what? So maybe someone likes to cook and eat. Why
was this place targeted during the police operation against illegal
brothels?

A little bit of history is in order. In recent years, the most common
form of organized prostitution is to import mainland Chinese girls to Hong
Kong, legally or illegally. However, the police have been watching the
public places where prostitutes hang out. Once found 'working,' these
girls will be deported back to mainland China. So a newer model is for
the girls to stay inside a specific apartment without ever stepping out into
the street. Meanwhile, the clients can find them through the
Internet. Besides the listings of prostitutes in Hong Kong which are
hosted on overseas websites, the operators also post to Hong Kong discussion
forums under the guise of 'reviews.'

If the girls are supposed to stay indoors all the time, then they need to
order food in. Most of these girls come from Hunan and Hubei provinces
where the food is hot and spicy. So the girls found the local Hong
Kong food rather bland and tasteless. The aforementioned kitchen is an
unlicenced restaraunt that served the working girls in the area with
home-style cooking.

Five persons were arrested in that apartment, all of them being two-way-pass
visitors from Hunan province. They are cooks and delivery
persons. These people will certainly be found guilty of violating the
terms of their stay and be deported back to mainland China. Meanwhile,
the police are looking for the mastermind behind the restaurant. If
found, the person may be charged with illicit profiteering from the
prostitution activities of others.

When the movie <Exodus> was shown to the public yesterday, it carried
a Class IIB (Not Suitable for Children and Young People) rating even though
there were plenty of foul language in it. This meant that everybody
can watch the movie, but the promotional material must mention that it is
not suitable for children and young people. Previously, the presence
of certain Cantonese terms automatically results in Class III (Adults 18 or
over only) classifications.

According to a Ms. Wong from the Television and Entertaining Licensing
Authority: "Following considerations such as the changing times and
audience reception, we have made the appropriate relevant adjustments.
When we review a movie, we no longer make a determination on the basis of
the dialogue. Instead, we must regard this based upon the totality of
the movie ... For this movie, we arranged a special showing to the public
and the audience were not upset by the use of foul lanaguage.
Internally, we did not feel that the movie needs to be classified Class
III. So it was ultimately rated as Class IIB ... Changing times will
affect the audience's standards about morality and violence. We will
reference overseas film rating systems and continuously make
adjustments."

For the record, the three instances of foul language in <Exodus> were:

[042]
The Marketing of <Lust, Caution> (Apple
Daily) In the past, movie distributors in Hong Kong do not pay
too much attention to the Mid-Autumn Festival in their scheduling. But
the proximity of this festival to the October 1 golden week has got some of
them thinking about arranging their films to appeal to the large number of
mainland Chinese visitors. The one that will get the most attention is
<Lust, Caution>. In Hong Kong, the full 156 minutes version will
be on display publicly on September 26. In mainland China, the
premiere will take place about a month later with about 30 minutes
deleted. In Hong Kong, <Lust, Caution> is rated Class III
(Adults only); in mainland China, there is no film rating and therefore all
films must be suitable for all ages. For mainland travellers to Hong
Kong, <Lust, Caution> can be seen (1) earlier and (2) in full.

[041] The Story
Behind <Lust, Caution> (09/13/2007) Regular
visitors to this website probably noted the presence of some Chinese-only
articles recently:

張愛玲的書信:
有關"羊毛出在羊身上談《色·戒》"
and <色.戒>
故事.
Those articles were important because they illuminate on the origins of the
Eileen Chang's short story <Lust, Caution>, which Ang Lee turned into
the movie that just won the Best Film Award at the Venice Film Festival.
The material in my blog post has just been used by Yazhou
Zhoukan (Asia
Weekly) for this week's front cover story that spreads six pages inside (see 張愛玲色戒心結自辯手稿曝光﹕愛就是不問值得不值得
馬靄媛,亞洲周刊).

When the short story <Lust, Caution> first appeared in 1977, Eileen
Chang was criticized for glorifying a Chinese collaborator in the puppet
government under Japanese occupation. Therefore, she wrote a rebuttal
essay whose progress was recorded in the correspondence material in my blog
post. When Ang Lee's movie gets shown in Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland
Taiwan, the same criticisms will no doubt come up again. So at least we
get to see what the late Eileen Chang had to say.

This time around, there appears to be another line of attack. According
to some observers, the story was based upon the real-life Chinese collaborator
Ding Mocun and the real-life patriot Zheng Pingru, who was executed when she
failed in her attempt to assassinate Ding. This means that the sex
scenes in Ang Lee's movie will now be considered by some people as smearing
the memory of a genuine patriotic martyr. This week, Zheng's younger
sister gave a tearful press conference in Los Angeles about this aspect (see
video at "色戒"真實女主角80高齡胞妹:媒體扭曲傷我親姊!).
But the material in my blog post showed that Eileen Chang based the story
around a group of amateur Yenking University student spies that my father knew
personally about and told Eileen Chang. The inference about Ding
Mocun/Zheng Pingru is speculative and unsubstantiated. It may help sell
a few more newspaper/magazine copies with the thoroughly fascinating history
of Ding and Zheng, but it is not really related to <Lust, Caution>
itself.

As a blogger, I have to reflect on the difference in audience reception.
I first posted the scanned images of the Chinese-language correspondence
materials on this English-language website, and perhaps a few hundred people
read it. Less than half a dozen people linked to that blog post.
Many more people could have been interested, but they were not aware of its
existence.
The Yazhou Zhoukan cover story, which is nicely accompanied by
photographs from the movie, will bring the material to a much larger audience
across the Chinese-speaking world. On such matters, the blogosphere is
still a long way behind mainstream media. At the same time, if you have
an interesting subject and you post it on a blog, the mainstream media will
bite on it.

(in translation) This movie created a
bigger discussion theme than the movie itself, because the dialogue included a
number of Cantonese obscene terms. However, the movie has been
classified as Class II-B. Previously, it was assumed that as long as a
movie contained any of five Cantonese-language terms (which are the homonyms
of the sounds: "Miu," "Mai," "Mau,"
"Mud", and "Mun"), it will automatically be classified as
a Class III movie.

Note: The columnist had to use the homonyms because the
newspaper would be fined by the Television and Entertainment Authority/Obscene
Articles Tribune almost automatically for using the original words. By
using the homonyms, the spirit of the law is satisfied while everybody knows
exactly what the words are. Such is the vaunted
rule of law in Hong Kong.

Blogger Leona
Wong attended a Baptist University movie on forum at which Ping
Ho-cheung spoke. Here is the director's thoughts on obscene language and
nudity.

I never understood why movies containing
obscene language, such as Jacob Leung's <Cage People>, could be
classified by the Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority as Class
III, whereas movies with topless nudity were classified as Class IIB.
Please do not say that this is for the protection of children. I think
that the likelihood of children encountering people using obscene language
in the street is far greater than them encountering naked women.

On the ninth issue of the overseas edition of
<Zhiyin>, there was a report written by a person named "Zhang
Yunfei" titled <Joint Complaint Signed By Eleven Mistresses Brought
Down Corrupt Former Shaanxi Provincial Communist Party Political
Consultative Conference Vice-Chairman Pang Jiayu>. A number of
websites re-published this essay.

An inquiry to the Pang Jiayu case team of the Central
Disciplinary Commission revealed that Pang Jiayu was accused of dereliction
of duty for the burst pipes from the Fengjiashan reservoir, the huge
economic losses from the illegally issued state bonds from the Baoji
financial company as well as his accepting of bribes and gifts.
Complaints from citizens led to the formation of a special Central
Disciplinary Commission to investigate his case. Pang Jiayu is a
suspected criminal who has referred to the law enforcement
authorities. However, the eleven mistresses mentioned in the report to
have filed a jointly signed petition is purely fictional.

"Lust, Caution", the
Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion winner for best picture, will be cut by
30 minutes for audiences on the Chinese mainland, renewing debate about the
adoption of film rating system.

With a original running time of
two hours and 36 minutes, the film was to have a large number of sex scenes
excised to become "relatively clean", said the film's director Ang
Lee.

Lee's film, called "Se,
Jie" in Chinese, set in Japanese-occupied Shanghai in 1940s, contains
bold sex scenes between a young woman spy played by novice actress Tang Wei
and powerful political figure played by Tony Leung, and has been given the
restrictive NC-17 label in the United States, banning viewers under 17.

... Online discussion about the
film has been unexpectedly hot. Thenews.nen.com.cn website commented that
mainland audiences could simply watch the full version on pirated discs, and
it doubted whether the cinema version could attract audiences without the
sex scenes. The beelink.com website said the film should be treated as
"art" and not as "pornography".

In Taiwan, <Lust, Caution> will be shown in
full as promised by the Government Information Minister Shieh Jhy-Wey
(see TVBS). In Hong Kong, <Lust, Caution> will be shown in full, with
the Class III rating that limits the audience to those 18 years or
older. But already, the spoofs are coming out from Hong Kong. Apple
Daily has a poster of "Ms. Broomhead" Regina Ip, a likely
candidate in the Hong Kong Island Legislative Council by-election.

About a month ago, a netizen with nickname Xiao Bie
learned that the father of another netizen in Guangzhou had terminal lunng
cancer. So Xiao Bei and a few other netizens went over to pay a
personal visit. At 2pm on July 27, the funeral/cremation of the late
father took place. But Xiao Bie was unable to attend. Instead he
kept sending SMS messages to ask the netizen how things were going.

When the netizen returned home, he found the door of his home wide
open, and there were two notebook computers, two mobile telephones and 5,500
yuan in cash missing. The netizen suspected that Xiao Bie might have
burglarized the home while the family was attending the funeral service.

On the next day, the story broke open on QQ. One netizen wrote:
"We cannot use words to describe our anger. We swear that we will
track this guy down!" So an Internet arrest warrant was issued
with everybody contributing their efforts. First, they found a
photograph of Xiao Bie, and they were surprised to find that he was a famous
Internet fraudster with real name He Tianbao. Then the netizens found
the real address of He Tianbao and called the police, who found the two
missing notebook computers in that home. However, He Tianbao was not
home. It turned out that He used his loot to take his girlfriend away.

But the Internet warrant was still in effect. On August 31, a netizen
saw He Tianbao on Haizhu Road and many netizens went out there to wait at
11pm. At 2am on September 1, they saw He Tianbao and called the
police. He Tianbao was then taken into custody.

According to investigation, He Tianbao had a simple way to defraud
people. First, he posted to sell products at good prices at the
BBS's. Next, he used many means including sock puppet accounts to get
netizens to lower their wariness. Finally, he got the buyer to pay up
front and then he promptly disappeared. Most of the time, the amounts
are just several hundred yuan so that the victims usually did not bother to
call the police.

[036] The
Evil Dregs of the British Colonial Administration (09/11/2007)
(Oriental
Daily) This 'news' report is remarkable because no such thing
could have shown up in a Hong Kong English-language newspaper.
Nevertheless, here it is in Hong Kong's largest selling Chinese newspapers with
a daily circulation of 400,000 or so copies.

[in translation]

The situation in the by-election of the
Hong Kong Island Legco seat has taken an unexpected turn today with
information is that former Chief Secretary Sir David Robert Ford, Next Media
Group chairman Jimmy Lai, Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen, former Democratic
Party chairman and other evil dregs of British colonialism are manipulating
the strings behind the curtain in order to make former Chief Secretary Anson
Chan enter the race in spite of her reluctance. This is happening
because Anson Chan is the last chess piece left for the British in Hong
Kong.

On Friday, August 31, which is two days before Martin Lee
suddenly declared open support for Mrs. Chan while putting down Cyd Ho, Ford
showed up in Hong Kong and stayed at his regular haunt of the Shangri La
Hotel in Admiralty. The news was that Ford came here with two big
assignments. The first was to persuade the hesitant Mrs. Chan enter
the election. The second is to fix the internal squabbling among the
pan-democrats and force the potential candidates Cyd Ho and the Democratic
Party's Kam Nai-wai to abandon their campaign efforst. The facts show
that his script is being realized scene by scene.

Whenever there is something big on the political scene in
Hong Kong (including the July 1st march in 2003, the Legislative Council
showdown in 2005, the 2007/2008 political reform proposal and Mrs. Chan
high-profile announcement to participate in last year's July 1st march),
Mrs. Chan's former British boss Ford would make a special trip to Hong
Kong. Ford came from the British intellgence agency (MI6), and he was
responsible for promoting Mrs. Chan and positioning her as the first Chinese
Chief Secretary. After the return of Hong Kong to China, he continued
to maintain close contact with Mrs. Chan and he is regarded as the messenger
between Mrs Chan and the British government as well as her advisor behind
the scenes.

Jimmy Lai and Joseph Zen have intimate ties to the United
States and they are said to play active roles in this affair.
Democratic Party chairman Albert Ho and Kam Nai-wai told reporters yesterday
that they met with Mrs. Chan. A reporter asked them straight out
whether Jimmy Lai and Joseph Zen were present at the meeting, but Albert Ho
declined to answer. This only makes people suspect that something more
went on in the meeting.

[035] China
Mobile PK China Unicom (09/11/2007) (Daqi)
In Sichuan, Mianyang Mobile reached an agreement with the Mianyang Teachers
College and the Southwestern Science and Technology University to have a
mobile telephone monopoly among students that excludes Mianyang
Unicom. But Mianyang Unicom went ahead to establish a tent in front of
the entrance of the Mianyang Teachers College anyway. This led to a
series of incidents.

On the night of September 5, the China Unicom tent outside the Mianyang
Teachers College was set on fire by six unidentified persons and the the
glass on the display cases were smashed. The night guard was reduced
to shivering in fear and mumbling incoherently.

On the morning of September 6, the student direct sales workers were
distributing promotional material inside the Southwestern Science and
Technolgoy University, but China Mobile worker Wang Yao brought along three
hooligans who attacked the student workers. When the Unicom workers
tried to stop the attack, they were assaulted and bloodied by the Mobile
workers.

At around 11:30am on September 7, four Unicom workers were promoting their
services at the entrance to the Mianyang Teachers College when four Mobile
workers leading more than 30 hooligans charged out from inside the
university campus to begin an attack with iron rods, bricks, wooden
poles. One of the Unicom workers tried to run away but six men pursued
him and hit him in the back of the head with a blunt object. That
Unicom worker passed out, but was revived at the hospital.

At around noon on September 7, a Unicom worker was delivering lunch boxes to
the sales people when two unidentified men assaulted him and threw him on
the ground. The two men then got on a fan with a China Mobile sign and
left the scene.

In a free market, the consumers should be given a choice on how and where to
spend their money. A single business should not be allowed to dominate
by using outside forces to interfere with the market. The unreasonable
competitive behavior above did not do the consumers any good. Instead,
it created bad effects.

[034] The
Most Awesome Security Guard (09/11/2007) The photographs in The
Most Awesome Security Guard in Chongqing actually drew a lot of
skepticism. For example, the first photograph showed the porter
resting on the shop window ledge and then the security guard showed up
later. How did the photographer know to take that first
photograph? Was he prescient?

(Southern
Metropolis Daily) By checking with the photographer as well as
another eyewitness, the following was established. The photographer
was a newspaper photojournalist (which explains the professional quality of
the photographs) who only began shooting after the physical action
began. The photograph of the porter resting on the ledge was staged
about 30 minutes afterwards before the porter went to file a police report.

In Kaohsiung, 35-year-old Chinese Commmunist Party
Political Consultative Conference member Zhang Weiliang from Baiyun
district, Guangdong province filed a police report. According to
Zhang, he was travelling in a group tour of 15 people who represent the
department of agriculture in Baiyun district. Last night, he was
unable to sleep and therefore he went out and found a taxi to take him to
somewhere to "for fun and relaxation." He was taken to a
hotel, where a man with tatoos on his arm brought a girl in. Zhang was
not satisfied with the looks of the girl and wanted someone else. But
the man said, "If you don't pay up, you won't be able to
leave." Zhang became scared and handed over the 6,000 yuan on
him. Then he went to file a police report. The Kaohsiung police
arrested the man who allegedly threatened Zhang. The man said that
this was just a consumer fee dispute, and the sum of money was only 1,200
yuan. When the police tried to contact Zhang again, he said "I
don't want the money" and he only wanted to return to Guangdong as
quickly as possible. The Liberty Times reporter attempted to contact
Zhang too, but the tour was still on the road.

On September 10, the Guangzhou Baiyun district government
spokesperson said that the Baiyun district Department of Forestry director
is named Zhang Weiliang. But he is not a member of the Chinese
Communist Party Political Consultative Conference. Furthermore, he is
more than 50 years old and not the 35-year-old according to the Kaohsiung
police. "But the most key point is that there is no study group
from Baiyun district traveling to Taiwan recently. Baiyun district
Department of Forestry has been in Guangzhou this whole time and did not go
to Taiwan. Kaohsiung probably got the wrong information."

Of the three times that I covered the APEC meeting, this
Sydney trip was the most unbearable.

In the past, as long as we have an APEC press pass, we
could cruise around the press area in the hotels of the state leaders
without restriction. When we spot a target person, we would raise our
audio recorder and ask questions. We would gather around and watch the
"pool" videos. We would watch the meeting between Hu Jintao
and Donald Tsang over and over again even though it only lasts a few minutes
or even just a few dozen seconds. We tried to figure out the
atmosphere and emphasis of the meeting through the opening remarks and the
time lengths of the handshakes.

This year, I went with my APEC press pass to the Sofitel
Hotel where Chairman Hu Jintao was staying. It turned out that the
rows of iron barriers and strong guys were not there just for show. A
special purple-colored press pass issued by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign
Affairs separated me from the other. I saw my colleagues from other
media outlets walk in with their press passes in hand. I argued with
the personnel outsite the iron barriers unsuccessfully, and then I began
to feel sorry for myself.

Why was I denied entry? I heard that the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs treated everything related to the bilateral talks as part of
the Australian trip. So even though they were not on their own turf,
they had cause not to allow any "non-compliant" newspaper to
enter. If they had told me beforehand that "You are not welcome
here," I would not have found it so unbearable. To make me wait
in vain in the cold drizzle so that I can bear witness to their preferential
system was very discouraging.

It is not easy being an Apple Daily reporter. Do not
say that we receive higher pay. There has to some compensation for the
mental anguish from the discrimination and ostracization that we
suffer. And I have to thank the colleagues who do their best to
provide me with the information that I missed.

P.S. After the rejection, I walked back through the dark
night from the Sofitel Hotel back to Darling Harbour. That half-hour
walk felt very long.

[031] A Reporter's List of
Questions At The IAAF World Championships (09/10/2007) Liu
Xiang's win in the 110m high hurdles brought out National
Flag Gate. Another unexpected result was the public anger
directed at the CCTV female reporter Dong Rinuo (

Q: "Your race number is 441. 4+4+1 equals 9. You have been
assigned to Lane 9 today. Is 9 your lucky number?"
Q: "Were you particularly confident before the race?"
Q: "Did you feel very perfect in today's race?"
Q: "Does regular participation in international competitions help your
psychological state?"
Q: "Does your coach provide you with a lot of help?"
Q: "If newcomers appear, will you train even harder?"

Here is the list of questions that Dong Rinuo asked Shi Dongpeng, the other
Chinese hurdler in the race.

Q: "Do you feel very sad to be in the same era as Liu Xiang?"
Q: (pre-race) "Are you confident about finishing second?
Because Liu Xiang is going to the win the race."
Q: (post-race) "Did you try your best in the race that just
finished?"

Addendum:
(To a male long jumper) "I wish you the best of luck in the women's
triple jump tomorrow." Whereupon the man turned and walked away.

[030] A Model Hero Is Resurrected
For Socialist Capitalist Construction
(09/10/2007) First, a piece of
Chinese history from Stefan
Landsberger:

Dong Cunrui (1929-1948), a Party member, was made a Hero
of the People's Liberation Army in 1963. During a campaign in the civil war
between Communist and Nationalist forces (1946-1949), the advance of the PLA
was blocked by a last enemy stronghold, in the form of a pill-box built on a
bridge. Dong pressed a pack of explosives against the bridge with his hand
and blew the pill-box off. He was killed in the explosion.

The revolutionary hero Dong Cunrui's image of holding up
the explosives before becoming a martyr has been used by a Guangzhou hospital
for gallstone treatment. Instead of holding explosives in this hand,
he is holding a stone. The accompanying text was "Are you a
'hero'? You could not endure this, right?" This advertisement appeared in a free
publication. When the reporter contacted the hospital, a worker said
that the advertisement was comissioned to an advertisement agency. As
such, he says that it was "totally unrelated to the
hospital." He said that the hospital has received complaints and
they were depressed as a result.

[029]屁
(09/09/2007) (TVBS)
On the anniversary of the Down-with-Bian movement, the "red army"
returned to the Ketagalan Boulevard with thirty candles each in order to
compose
a 'totem' (圖騰)
for the word '屁'
(which means "fart", "flatulence", "an often audible
discharge of intestinal gas"). This is a change from the "Down
with A-Bian 阿扁下台"
slogan to a "A-Bian is full of bullshit (or fart)
阿扁放屁".

Since September this year, Beijing has instituted the
"Capital Internet 110 Virtual Police." These appeared first
at the portals such as Sina.com, Sohu.com and others, and will cover all
websites based in Beijing by the end of December. According to news
reports, the virtual police has jurisdiction mainly over illegal activities
on the Internet such as disseminating pornography or selling banned
materials. But the fact is that the Internet crimes also covered
Internet theft, fraud, gambling, terrorism, money laundering, superstition, rumor mongering,
etc.

These were always illegal activities under the law, and
they did not become legalized with the emergence of the Internet. It
is just that the Internet created for opportunities for people to commit
these crimes there. Although the virtual police are well-intended,
there seems to be some hidden concerns about them.

First of all, the Internet is the most common mode of
communication nationally or even globally. This author is dubious
about the rationality and effectiveness of local control of the
Internet. Suppose bank account passwords are being stolen and the
thief is in Beijing but the victim is outside of Beijing; or suppose the
victim is in Beijing but the thief is outside Beijing (or even outside of
China). What was the Beijing Internet police going to do? Of
course, in principle, the Beijing police can contact the outside public
security agencies to work together. But without the coordination of
the national government, it would be difficult and inefficient for the
Beijing public security bureau to do anything. Furthermore, most of
the Internet crimes that occurred at the Beijing-based websites (such as the
big portals) have nothing whatsoever to do with Beijing ...

The key here is that the scope of the Internet is far
beyond what a local government can control. Only the central
government can implement effective controls on the Internet. If the
local governments implement their own systems, the standards will not be
uniform and this will have the bad effect of breaking down the Internet
space.

Even more worrisome is that the definitions of certain
Internet crimes are very broad and vague, to the point where ordinary people
have no way of telling the boundary between the legal and the illegal.
The government will encounter similar problems in making that determination,
and this means that law enforcement will seem arbitrary. The two most
troublesome types of crime are "Internet superstition" and
"Internet rumor mongering." Beijing does not explain just
what is superstition. For example, is praising "Lord Guan"
on the Internet superstition? The citizens have the basic right to
religious belief. Article 36 in the 1982 Constitution states that the
citizens have the freedom of religion. In a certain sense, all
religions carry some flavor of "superstition" because all
religions have a certain supernatural belief that cannot be tested by
sensory organs or experiments. If someone says that "Lord
Guan" is a god, he may not be able to prove it to us in a way that we
can accept. But we cannot prove that he is wrong either, because we
have not met any gods ourselves. So this is a matter of personal judgment
and we cannot possibly set up an objective standard to define what is
"proper"/"normal" belief versus
"superstition." But if the government wants to use their own
judgment to ban or punish "Internet superstition," then article 23
of the Constitution about the freedom of religion would lose its meaning.

The Beijing regulations define "Internet rumor mongering"
as "harmful speech," but there is no explanation of what kind of
speech is harmful. Article 35 of the Constitution stipulates that the
citizens have the freedom of speech and publishing. Obviously,
Internet speech is protected by the Constitution. Of course, freedom
of speech is not absolute; if someone spreads falsehoods on the Internet
that create terror and chaos, then he cannot invoke freedom of speech to
evade legal responsibility. Yet, we know that once upon a time when
one and only one person was allowed to have a say, it had even worse social
consequences. Therefore, we must be very careful if we are to restrict
speech. After all, even the government makes mistakes, especially in
not being able to cope with public criticisms fairly. If the
government can ban anything because it thinks this was harmful speech, then
article 35 of the Constitution about the freedom of speech would lose its
meaning too.

Ordinary people may not be the smartest. But if they
can have the full information and conduct a full discussion, their
collective judgment is likely to be better than the government alone.
In the past, we used to say, "The eyes of the masses are as bright as
snow." We have to trust that the ordinary citizens will be able
to tell the "fragrant flowers" from the "poisonous weed"
in an era in which "one hundred flowers bloom" and that their
decision will be in the best interest of the majority of the people.
Therefore, the government should not restrict such discussions if there is
no immediate damage ...

Recently, a civil case involving an ordinary
Nanjing citizen drew a strong response on the Internet. The
facts of the case are still confusing, but the following is known: The old
lady Mrs. Xu was waiting for a bus and fell down during the jostle to get on
the bus; citizen Peng Yu came off the bus and helped her to get up; Mrs. Xu
then sued Peng as the person who pushed her and sued him for the 100,000+
yuan in medical expenses; Peng Yu claimed that he was only a kind-hearted
citizen trying to help a fellow citizen in distress; the court determined
that Mrs. Xu was injured as a result of a collision with Peng and ordered
him to pay 40% of her medical expenses; Peng told the local media that his
act of kindheartedness led him to be wrongfully sued. This story of a
good-deed-earned-a-bad-end propagated quickly over the Internet ...

This case fell into a Rashomon-like puzzle
because there is no way to know the truth. Did Peng Yu collide with
Mrs. Xu? People can only say "I believe that ..." but there
is no way to convince people on the other side. Yet, the court must
come to a decision based upon the evidence that it had on hand and its
understanding of human nature. As such, the court cannot possibly
please everybody. As a result, the people who believe in Peng Yu
thinks that the court was unfair, but their opinions are considered
unfounded and rash by people on the other side. Of course, there are
also more and more people who think that the truth in this case is
unknowable and therefore refuse to rush to judgment.

... The most popular Internet posts on this
case are almost one-sidedly for Peng Yu's innocence. Some of them
deduced that there must be some 'chicanery' behind the court judgment, such
as indicated by the fact that Mrs. Xu's son is a policeman, etc. The
case was also elevated as evidence that the law and morality have both gone
missing in China today ... this outburst of anger reflects the social
emotions that we are familiar with: the dissatisfaction with the law
enforcement agencies, the moral sense of people and the rules of society ...
such anger obviously has some basis. To a certain degree, the anger
also meant that the people still hold a slight glimmer of hope: they still
expect justice in the world, and this expectation is making people speak up
and take action in order to change their world.

This is not the first time that we have seen
this yearning for the re-establishment of morality in civic society.
On the Internet, we have seen people organize on behalf of impoverished
students, ailing mothers, children forced to drop out of school, slave
laborers in illegal brick kilns, stopping the torturing of cats, the case of
Huang Jing, the case of Gao Yingying and so on. They organized to
support, speak and act in the name of truth, conscience and justice.
But their actions are transient and their organizations are loose.
There is still no roadmap for how the moral forces of the civic sector will progress.
In practice, these moral forces out the system are destined to be
short-lived, disorganized, disorderly, stunted and ineffective.
Furthermore, they contain a certain unstated risk because they lack
self-reflection and rationality, which means that they can exhibit violent
tendencies.

In the case of Peng Yu, we see such an
example: the facts of the case are difficult to ascertain, but the
commentators are convinced. Of course, people are condemning certain
macro-level issues that clearly and truly exists: the unfairness of the
judiciary, moral degeneration, the evils that are leaching onto the system
... but with respect to the Peng Yu case itself when the facts are uncertain
(and may never be known), is it right to choose to condemn social
morality? This one-sided public opinion in the name of justice has at
least one bad consequence: the originally ambiguous circumstances of the
case have been turned by various levels of people who had
"justice" in mind into something very simple about a kindhearted
person being maligned instead. But what if Peng Yu was really
guilty? That possibility cannot be excluded. People get together
to fight against moral degeneration, but they end up with covering up the
truth in the name of justice and they invoke the name of morality in order
to damage morality. This tragedy is occurring only because people do
not trust the system right now.

Hong Kong Island Legislative Councilor Ma Lik passed away
last month and his Legco seat is up for by-election. Since Ma Lik's
death on August 8, the pan-democratic camp has been fighting over this
seat. They have thought up everything possible with only the word
"Win" in mind. As long as the pan-democratic representative
can beat Regina Ip and enter the Legco, all will be fine hereafter.

That was how this struggle unfolded over the past
month. But the pan-democrats do not seem to have considered whatsoever
just what kind of Legco member the citizens wanted. From the viewpoint
of the voters, there will be winners and losers in all elections. They
are most concerned about whether the winners will be completely dedicated to
serving society and the people.

The citizens have a very simple role for the Legco
members. When a Legco member is selected, he should represent the
citizens. Perhaps this Legco member belongs a political party, but
public interests should supersede party interests . The elected Legco member
has the duty to monitor the government, to fight for maximum benefits for
the citizens, to protect the assets of the taxpayers and to satisfy the
needs of the people. It is as simple as that.

At present, the entire atmosphere of this election is that
of a political wrestling match. The pan-democrats have targeted Regina
Ip because she is their "mortal enemy," but they are also fighting
among themselves publicly and privately over the issue of their
representative(s). After the news of Ma Lik's death came, Cyd Ho was
the first to express her intention to participate in the by-election, and
she received the support of the senior elders of the Democratic Party.
But her statement did not imply that she got the nod, because the
second-tier Democratic Party member Kam Nai-wai also openly announced his
intention to run. The newly founded League of Social Democrats also
expressed interest.

Who shall compete against Regina Ip? Will they gang
up on her, or go one-on-one with one representative? After many
discussions, the decision was that it will be one-on-one combat. But
who was going to voluntarily give up their chance to face Regina Ip?
So a primary election system was devised, so that the ultimate
pan-democratic representative has to pass three tests in order to become the
official representative. This agreement was going to lead to a face-off
among the candidates. But suddenly, the Democratic Party senior elders
changed their minds and said that they wanted to persuade former Chief
Secretary Anson Chan to enter the race. Anson Chan said that she has
no intention to enter the race, but she will think about it.
Meanwhile, the first person to declare -- Cyd Ho -- was also the first
person to announce her withdrawal.

It is still unknown whether the "primary election
system" of the pan-democrats would work. If Anson Chan really
wants to run, she ought be able to go directly into the finals based upon
her quality and class. But would the other candidates accept
that? If Anson Chan stays on the sideline and Cyd Ho has already left
the field, then haven't the pan-democrats weakened themselves?

The voters are watching how things develop. Over the
past month, things were happening on a daily basis. The voters are
stunned that the entire Hong Kong society only knows politics and nothing
else. Everybody's energies are placed on a Legco seat with only an
eight-month term. This seat did not belong to the pan-democratic camp
before, but they are now saying that if they lose this seat, the Legislative
Council will have fallen into enemy hands and there would be no hope for
double universal suffrage in 2012.

Our position in this column has always been that we do not
want to see Hong Kong become overly politicized. When voters pick
sides and events are classified by those sides, this will only destroy
harmony in Hong Kong . If the pan-democrats recognized what the citizens are
thinking about and campaign for this election from the public angle instead,
it should be so easy to defeat Regina Ip.

[025] School
Opening Day (09/08/2007) (Tianya)
On September 3, the Huazhong Normal University commenced school. Out
of 4,100 new students accepted this year, 2,200 receive free tuition, room
and board because their families were disadvantaged. Some of the
students were brought to the university campus by their parents. The
university said, "We will not let a single new student quit on account
of poverty, and we will not let a single parent sleep in the streets on
account of poverty." The following photographs were taken at the
indoor gymnasium at 11:30pm on the night of September 3. 350 parents
slept on mats provided by the school in the air-conditioned building.

[024] Hong
Kong By The Numbers (09/08/2007) (Ming
Pao) (1,814 persons were interviewed by automated telephone
September 4-7, of which 428 claimed to be Hong Kong Island residents)

If former Chief Secretary Anson Chan and Savantas Think Tank chairman
Regina Ip were to run against each other, who would you support?39.25%: Anson Chan
35.75%: Regina Ip
25%: Undecided

If only Anson Chan and Regina Ip were running in the by-election, who
would you like to see elected?52%: Anson Chan
32%: Regina Ip
9%: Neither
6%: Don't know/hard to say

Why are these answers so different? First of all, Ming Pao is running
an automated telephone poll, which has lower response rate and higher survey
bias. More importantly, the questions are different -- Ming Pao asks
about "Who would you support?" while HKU POP asks about "Who
would like to see elected?" The more direct question should be
"Do you intend to vote"+"If yes, whom will you vote
for?" but it is not yet appropriate to ask that question for two potential
but undeclared candidates.

[023] De-KMT-ification
in Taiwan (09/08/2007) In Comment
200709#002, Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian said that more than 70%
of Taiwan judges and prosecutors are 'blue' and incapable of telling right
from wrong. Therefore, he would refuse to resign if a guilty verdict
is returned in the state secret fees case even though he had previously
promised to do so. In Comment 200709#005, Government Information Office Minister Shieh Jhy-Wey
announced at a press conference that all law officials had better publicly
declare their party affiliation! "In any case that involves political figures, the judges and prosecutors must announce publicly their
political party affiliation (or lack thereof). Otherwise, their
judgments will be questioned no matter how fair they are."

Should this inquisition be limited only to the judiciary branch? What
about the executive branch, for example?

(TVBS,
TVBS,
TVBS)
From the KMT Party history archives come the following photographs from the
application forms of certain prominent members of the current
government. Do you recognize them?

Every one of them was a member of the KMT during that era. That is not
the point. The point is that whether you are behaving the way that you
are supposed to here and now. If not, then your former KMT party
membership becomes a huge issue; if yes, who cares?

[022] What
He Got And What She Got (09/08/2007) Here is the difference in
emphasis between the English-language and Chinese-language newspapers in
Hong Kong:

What he got (via SCMP) Government approves early retirement of RTHK chief

The government had
approved the early retirement of scandal-plagued RTHK chief Chu Pui-hing,
and would consider both people from within and outside the public
broadcasters as candidates to fill in his post, a spokesman said on Friday.
Mr Chu, the Director of Broadcasting, sought an earlier retirement in July
after being photographed hiding behind a woman reported to be a karaoke
hostess. The photo was widely carried in Hong Kongs
Chinese-language newspapers. Their reports said Mr Chu had left an exclusive
karaoke bar in Causeway Bay with the woman who was a hostess at the bar and
had previously worked as an exotic dancer.

What she got (The
Sun) "When My Father Learned That I Did Lap Dancing, He
Slapped Me In The Face!"

At age 14, Coco left her Sichuan
homedown. She has worked as a salesperons, a street vendor, a service
worker and eventually she became a dancer. Coco has never told her
family about these experiences.

"A couple days after I got home, reporters began to show up and my past
history as a lap dancer was exposed. When my father learned that I was
a lap dancer, he thought that it was the same as being prostitute. He
thought that it was a huge loss of face and he was very angry. He
swung a slap at me. After that, even more reporters showed up. I
had to leave home and move into a hotel. I have lost eight kilograms
since the incident. There is a great deal of pressure. I put the
pressure on myself."

Q4. What should the process be for
reaching universal suffrage in the direct election of the Chief Executive?42%: 2012, establish a nominating committee immediately to reach universal
suffrage
27%: 2017, after transition phases
23%: later than 2017, after transitional phases
8%: No opinion

Q5. Concerning universal suffrage in the direct election of the Chief
Executive, do you believe that it is like that two-thirds of the Legislative
Councilors will vote for the proposal?29%: Yes
51%: No
20%: No opinion

Q6. If universal suffrage in the direct election of the Chief Executive is
not possible in 2012, will you accept it in 2017 instead?53%: Yes
32%: No
15%: No opinion

Q7. What should the process be for reaching universal suffrage in the
direction election of the Legislative Council?39%: 2012, in one step
26%: 2016, in phases
28%: after 2016, in phases

Q8. Concerning universal suffrage in the direct election of the Legislative
Council in 2012, do you believe that the two-thirds of the Legislative
Councilors will vote for the proposal?30%: Yes
50%: No
20%: No opinion

Q9. If universal suffrage in the direct election of the Legislative Council
is not possible in 2012, will you accept it in 2016 instead?52%: Yes
31%: No
17%: No opinion

On August 30, a taxi driver piced up a female
passenger who appeared to be following the Lexus that her husband was
driving. At the intersection of Furong Road and Songguiyuan Road,
there was a red traffic stop light. The Lexus and the taxi drivers
were next to each other. Suddenly, the Lexus driver jumped out of his
car, went up to the taxi, opened the passenger door and slapped his wife in
the face. Then he jumped up on the engine hood of the taxi and
broke the front window by kicking it with his foot. Other taxis then
converged to the scene and surrounded the Lexus. The Lexus driver
talked some trash to the taxi drivers, who were infuriated and proceeded to
pummel the Lexus driver. The police raced to the scene and took the
Lexus driver into the police vehicle. From the safety of the police
vehicle, the Lexus driver shouted that the taxi drivers were just "a
bunch of country bumpkins." That caused the outraged taxi drivers
to vandalize and overturn the Lexus. It took the police more than two
hours to clear the scene.

Internet opinion is actually divided.
There are those who thought that the Lexus driver was an arrogant prick who
thought he could vandalize the taxi cab without consequences and then he did
not know enough to stop but worse things repeatedly instead. There are
others who thought that the taxi drivers were acting like gangsters who
administer their own violent street rules.

[019] The
Bridge of the Future of Liangshan (09/07/2007) (MOP)
Equipment: Canon EOS 5D
Date: 2007-08-06 16:05:40
Location: Meigu county, Liangshan, Sichuan province
Description. The flood water washed away part of the small wooden bridge
that the students used to cross the river. To deliver the children
safely to the other side, the teacher used his body as a bridge for them to
step over.

With so many fake Internet photographs lately, opinions about this one is
split. Is this a staged event to hype something or the other? Is
this a PhotoShop job? Or is this a genuine human story?

[018] Eleven
Mistresses Brought Down The Shaanxi CPPCC Vice-Chairman
(09/07/2007) (Southern
Daily) In early July, the Central Disciplinary Committee
announced that Shaanxi provincial Communist Party Political Consultative
Conference vice-chairman Pang Jiayu is involved in a corruption case.
Pang was denounced by a group of eleven of his mistresses, each of whom
produced pieces of evidence based upon their personal access and knowledge.

In 1994, Pang Jiayu became the mayor of Baoji city. At a certain
meeting of the city government families, Pang took an interest in the wife
of one of his workers. The wife named Zeng was a pretty school
teacher. On December 31, 1995, the Baoji city cadres went to a
mountain resort for a business meeting along with their families.
After dinner, the husband of Zeng received an emergency call to return to
Baoji immediately. That night, Pang Jiayu knocked on the door of
Zeng's room and showed her a videotape of her husband cavorting with a
prostitute. Also fearing the power and authority of Pang Jiayu, Zeng
became his mistress. Shortly afterwards, Pang Jiayu arranged for Zeng
to become the general manager of a tourist agency and they continued to meet
outside for trysts.

In 1997, the Baoji government was due for major reassignments. Some
officials began to sent their wives to "chat" with the
mayor. At the time, the nickname of Pang Jiayu was the "zipper
mayor."

In March 1998, Pang Jiayu became the party secretary of Baoji city.
One of his first money-raising scheme was to set up a financial investment
company where the husband of Zeng was the chairman, and another mistress
Liang Mei and the husband of another mistress named Zheng Jie were the
vice-chairmen. This company did not have the required permits to
engage in financial investments but when ahead anyway. Within one
year, the company had made 120 million yuan.

To placate the other mistresses who were jealous, Pang Jiayu rewarded them
with construction projects. Baoji is short on water supply, and the
Shaanxi provincial government injected money to construct a water supply
system. Pang Jiayu appointed himself as the overall project director
and allotted the construction work to a company formed by his mistresses for
this purpose. The project was budgeted at 150 million yuan, but it
ultimately cost 320 million yuan. Within six months after the project
was completed, there were quality problems such as landslides and broken
pipes.

In May 2003, Pang Jiayu became the Shaanxi provincial CPPCC
vice-chairman. But the illegal financial company in Baoji collapsed
with more than 90 million yuan in losses. Many citizens went to Beijing to
petition about their lost investments. As a result, the chairman and
the two vice-chairpersons were taken into custody.

When Zeng went to Pang Jiayu for help, he said: "You tell your husband
that he better be smart and assume all the responsibility. Then I can
use my connections to get him only three years of suspended sentence.
He might even keep his job. But if he does not know how to keep his
mouth shut and wants to unload the shit on me, I will make sure that he gets
the death sentence!" Zeng's husband confessed in court and accepted
all responsibility. The court then gave him the death
sentence! Liang Mei and the husband of Zheng Jie received jail
sentences of 16 and 10 years respectively.

Afterwards, Zeng swore that she would bring down Pang Jiayu. She
realized that she could not bring him down by herself. So she
contacted Liang Mei, Zheng Jie and others. A total of 11 mistresses
agree to sign a complaint against Pang Jiayu. Among them, some offered
documents that Pang Jiayu accepted bribes; one of them held the financial ledger of
the company belonging to Pang Jiayu's wife ... these ironclad evidence
together with the letter of complaint from the eleven real-named individuals
shocked the central government leaders.

In the case of the prankster who posted
that a Japanese ninja defeated the Shaolin temple monks (see Comment
200708#089), the legal advisor for the temple issued a statement
that condemned the "extremely irresponsible act not just to the Shaolin
Temple and its monks, but to the Chinese martials arts community and the
entire Chinese people."

The post was aimed at the Shaolin temple, and I can see that it damaged the
temple and its monks. But the condemnation also involved the 'entire
Chinese people.' How did that happen? Is the Shaolin temple
being presumptuous? Shaolin martial arts may be known all over the
world and people think that it represents Chinese martial arts. That
would indeed be an honor to the temple. But the temple must not think
that it is the entire Chinese people, and it must not think that when
someone comes after them, that someone is also coming after the entire
Chinese people. The Chinese people consists of many ethnic groups and
it is combined concept that has no single specific realization. Nobody
can expand themselves into the entire Chiense people.

We want the Shaolin temple to be strong,
but we don't want to see it become presumptuous. When the temple is
the best in the world, it is strong. But if the temple puts on a cloak
of the "entire Chinese people," then it is presumptuous.
Being presumptuous is not being strong, just as being strong does not need
being presumptuous. Being presumptuous is the opposite of being
strong. There is no reason for the Shaolin temple to demand this
netizen to apologize to the entire Chinese people. Even if this person
offended the Shaolin temple, he has not offended the entire Chinese people
yet. In the end, this so-called offense was just a prank. If the
Shaolin temple were magnanimous, it would just laugh it off because silence
is golden. Yet, the Shaolin temple was physically strong but mentally
weak and it made a solemn announcement against an Internet post and demanded
an apology.

How would the Shaolin temple litigate if
the apology is not forthcoming? Under what basis? The Shaolin
temple, or the entire Chinese people? The former is farce, and the
latter is unwinnable.

The other question is just why Shaolin
temple tried to elevate this incident into an offense against the entire
Chinese people. Back in the "Anti-Rightist" campaign, two
colleagues went shopping for cloth. There were two kinds of cloth for
sale. So one person chose one kind and then said that the other kind
was not good. This person was then denounced as a 'rightist' because
both kinds of cloth were made under socialism and therefore he was
denouncing socialism. This type of thinking is known as 上纲上线
(bringing up the principles and lines). The principles and lines refer
to class differences, class struggles, dictatorship of the proletariat,
victory in the struggle between socialism and capitalism and other big
issues. Anything trivial such as leaving part of a steam bun uneaten,
being late a few minutes, wearing fashionable clothing, reading books about
western philosophy, dissastisfation with a party cadre, the goals of the
economic plan, attitudes towards the Party and the Government, opinions
about the designated successors to the leaders and so on are always
evaluated to the level of the principles and lines. If you say that
this piece of cloth is not good, you are attacking socialism; if you make a
prank on the Shaolin temple, you are insulting the entire Chinese
people. The logic is identical.

Back then, many people paid heavy prices
because of the principles and lines. But the notion has not stepped
off the stage of history when that era passed away, because it seems to
continue to exist in the thinking and language habits of the people.
It seems that the Shaolin monks also know about invoking the principles and
lines as well.

[016] China
Bans Sex Radio (09/07/2007) (The
Sun) On Wednesday, the
State Admnistration of Radio, Film and Television issued a notice that all
radio stations must not broadcast programs related to five sex-related
topics:
(1) Sex life
(2) Sex experience
(3) Sex understanding
(4) Sex organs
(5) Sex medicine

Specifically, SARFT named the Sichuan Provincial Radio Economic and Traffic
Channels and the Chengdu City Traffic, Cutural and Ecnoomic Channels for
using two to three hours every night after 9am to discuss and promulate
contents related to the five sex-related topics. These programs are
said to have polluted the social atmosphere and damaged the mental and
physical health of the general public, especially young people. As
such, they damage the reputation of radio in general. Sichuan
Provincial Radio and Chenghu City Radio have been ordered by SAFT to cease
these dirty obscene programs.

[015] Urban
Expansion Is Forcing The Chinese To Divorce (09/07/2007)
(Southern Metropolis Daily via Apple
Daily) Yufeng village, Shilou town, Guangzhou city was
designated as the site for the Asian Games that will be held in
Guangzhou. All displaced villagers will be assigned new homes next
spring. According to the proposed relocation plan, each married couple
constitutes one family and will receive one new home; a divorced couple
consistutes two families who get two new homes. So it is no surprise
that there has been a rash of divorces. For example, captain Guo of
the village's second production brigade got a lightning divorce from his
wife of more than 30 years.

The relevant department held an emergency meeting and declared that divorces
that occurred after August 7, 2007 do not qualify for separate homes.

Q1. Would you like Anson Chan to run in the Hong Kong Island Legco
by-election?45%: Very much, somewhat
35%: Somewhat not/very much not
13%: Half/half
6%: Don't know
(number of respondents = 499)

Q2. If only Anson Chan and Regina Ip were running in the by-election, who
would you like to see elected?52%: Anson Chan
32%: Regina Ip
9%: Neither
6%: Don't know/hard to say
(number of respondents = 502)

Yesterday evening, the Apple Daily reporter called Anson Chan to tell her
that more than 50% of the HKU POP poll respondents want her to be elected in
the Legco by-election, far ahead of Regina Ip. Mrs. Chan asked:
"How much? How much?" After the reporter repeated the
result, Mrs. Chan said, "Ha, ha" a few times and then said,
"I'm very grateful. I thank the citizens for their
support." When asked if this raises the likelihood of her
entering the election, Mrs. Chan said: "I'm presently considering
it. I will make a decision as soon as possible."

[013] But
At Least I Look Good (09/05/2007) (Daqi)
Previously, the Chinese fashionwear brand Semir (森马)
had run a series of advertisements.

(Left: I'm not going to become a sports superstar, but at least I look good)
(Right: I'm not an Olympic torch bearer, but at least I good good)

(Left: My tennis is rotten, but at least I look good)
(Right: My bowling is dreadful, but at least I look good)

Semir had also conducted a competition to look for similar slogans and
obtained entries such as: I don't have house, car or money, but at least I
look good, etc.

So the advertisement theme is: even though I am no hero, at least I look
good (with Semir clothes).

But then Semir ran this ad:
(I can't deal with global warming,
but at least I look good.)

All of a sudden, all hell breaks loose on the Internet. Comments such
as: "We need not say anything more about the urgency of the global warming
problem. This is the time when everybody has to take action. But
as a consumer company, it was obviously ignorant and immoral to announce to
the public that global warming is none of its business. What can a
company with no sense of corporate social responsibility bring to the public
and to society? Could the survival of mankind be totally unrelated to
the production and marketing of fashionwear?" "This shows
the sickness that exists in the cultural, marketing, publicity and
entertainment fields. They do not work from conscience and
sincerity. Instead, they strive for attention at the behest of
commercial interests. The products are either dark or maniacal, they
insult the intelligence of the people and they violate the sense of
aesthetics!"

Although Semir's global warming ad was based upon the same creative concept,
this one created a misunderstanding among some people and led to negative
publicity galore.

[012] Reporting
Style (09/05/2007) The detailed story was published in Huashi
Metropolis Daily (see The
Most Awesome Fake Reporter In History),
so Apple
Daily (Taiwan) really does not have any original or additional information or
insight. But Apple Daily does have graphic illustrators! This one shows
the fake reporter Feng Jie conducting a job interview for the opening of
administrative assistant.

The sudden withdrawal of Cyd Ho Sau-lan
from the Hong Kong Island Legco by-election surprised many
pan-democrats. Since Cy Ho has been vague about the reasons,
speculations abound among people. Yesterday, the news came out that
Cyd Ho withdrew because she had lied about her academic credentials when she
was a Legco member previously. But Cyd Ho explained that she had
attended Waterloo University in Canada but did not satisfy the thesis
requirement for the degree. In 1998, she was interviewed by Ming Pao
and voluntarily revealed this fact. This is now being resurrected as a
result of the Legco by-election.

When Cyd Ho announced her decision to
withdraw, the initial reaction was naturally that Martin Lee forced her to
quit in order for Anson Chan to run. But some pan-democrats familiar
with Martin Lee's thinking said that this was unfair. First of all,
Martin Lee would never do that. Secondly, the remaining term for this
Legco position is less than one year and therefore far less important than
people are making out it to be. So there was no need to use such
tactics. Besides, the chances of Anson Chan entering are still very
low.

Meanwhile, members of Cyd Ho's camp said
that they recommended last weekend that she should withdraw due to the
criticisms launched against her but the decision was delayed until the day
before yesterday. There are three reasons for her withdrawal.
First, the primary election mechanism that the pan-democrats agreed upon was
more unfavorable to her. For example, the weight of the public opinion
poll went from 60% to 50%. Secondly, the understanding of the
pan-democrats was to come up with a formidable candidate, but those who
intend to run do not have the stature to unify the pan-democrats. With
the call by many pan-democratic bosses for Anson Chan to run, Cyd Ho lost
interest. Thirdly, they found out that some people were digging up
dirt on Cyd Ho such as her attendance record at the District Council
meetings. Surprisingly, such people included pan-democrats. In
the end, she better off not running this time.

Reason 1. Academic credentials
(same story as in Ming Pao above). This was old news and should not
have been sufficient to force her to withdraw.

Reason 2. According to some
pan-democrats, Cyd Ho withdrew because the system of primary election was
unfavorable to her. She could handle the public opinion poll, but the
second stage consists of 10 pan-democratic organizations each sending 30
representatives to attend the public forum with the candidates. Cyd Ho
had 'teethmarks' (i.e. unhappy dealings) with almost all of these
organizations. If she were to show up, she would be the target of
everybody and would probably get the lowest number of votes.
Therefore, she wanted to use Anson Chan as an excuse to back out and save
her from the embarrassment.

Reason 3. The various pan-democratic
bosses want to force Anson Chan to run, but she is declining because there
are pan-democratic candidates alerady. Among the three people who have
already indicated their interests in running, Kam Nai-wai and Lo Wing-Lok
should be easy to persuade to withdraw. Cyd Ho is the one person who
really wanted to run. If she withdraws, the pan-democrats can force
Anson Chan to enter. But this scenario is stretching it too far.
Even if Cyd Ho withdraws, that does not mean that Anson Chan would
run. Worse yet, if Cyd Ho withdraws and Anson Chan does not run, then
which pan-democrat can challenge Regina Ip? Do they have to bring out
Szeto Wah out of retirement?

Civic Party lawmaker
Ronny Tong Ka-wah yesterday blamed "political heavyweights" for
the surprise withdrawal of Cyd Ho Sau-lan as a candidate for December's Hong
Kong Island by-election. While Tong did not name names, he was
apparently alluding to a statement by veteran democrat Martin Lee Chu-ming
who had suggested former chief secretary Anson Chan Fang On-sang would not
only be the ideal candidate but would also be exempt from the so-called
mechanism to select one candidate.

"I feel sorry for the voters of Hong
Kong Island constituency as they will have fewer people from which to
choose," Tong said. "But this was caused by some people who
ignored the selection mechanism and used tactics to frighten Cyd Ho
away." "I heard what Cyd said in the RTHK program. I could
feel the pressure she was under as an individual running an uphill battle
without a political party to support her," he said. "How can
you discourage someone who is willing to run and then name someone who's not
interested in running and turn the whole situation upside down?"

(SCMP)

Cyd Ho Sau-lan, who
on Monday pulled out of the Legislative Council by-election on Hong Kong
Island, last night called for an "inclusive culture" among
political parties. The democrat and former lawmaker said she could not
bring "200 per cent unity" to the pan-democratic camp.
"As an independent, it is a difficult job to unite different political
parties. This is a political reality," she said. "I hope there
will be a more inclusive culture among political parties, where people can
overlook some party constraints and work closer together for bigger
ideals." Insiders close to Ms Ho described her decision as
"the climax of long-simmering frustrations". They said she
had long been plagued by "backstabbing" from rivals among the
pan-democrats, despite initial support shown to her by some leading
pan-democrat figures.

Pan-democratic groups have agreed on how to
field a single candidate with the highest chance of winning the
Legislative Council by-election to be held in December. At a meeting
yesterday, they agreed on a points system to pick the candidate with the
highest score. The method is divided into three parts. Fifty percent
will be based on the results of a public opinion poll to be conducted by
an academic institute, and 35 percent will be based on the result of
voting by 30 representatives from 10 pan-democratic organizations which
have agreed to co-ordinate in the district council elections. The
first two parts will be conducted after open debates among contenders, due
to be held later this month. The remaining 15 percent will be based on the
result of voting by 28 pan-democratic district councillors in the Hong
Kong Island constituency.

Actually, I learned on Sunday evening
from a colleague and a pan-democrat person that Cyd Ho would
withdraw. The pan-democrat person thinks that Cyd Ho was keenly
aware that the pan-democrats' selection mechanism would get her into big
trouble. Among the three parts, the organizations which came up with
the agreement will each send 30 representatives to a forum in which they
will vote. According to the pan-democrats, virtually all of the
organizations except for Cyd Ho's own Civic Act-up are dissatisfied with
her. Therefore, Cyd Ho should be start enough if none of the
organizations would cas a single vote for her, her political career is
essentially terminated! So why not use the excuse that the
pan-democrat bosses want Anson Chan to run in order to back out now and
save herself for the 2008 Legislative Council election when the selection
mechanism is no longer there?

Nobody has asked the obvious
question. First, let us stipulate that the public opinion polls
currently show that Cyd Ho is the most popular candidate among the pan-democrats
who have indicated interest (Raymond Wong, Lo Wing-lok and Kam
Nai-wai). See, for example, the Ming
Pao poll. Next, let us say that the forum among the 300
representatives from the 10 pan-democratic organizations ends up with nobody
else except Civic Action voting for Cyd Ho. Why is this
scenario regarded as normal? Why is it normal for the pan-democratic
camp to vote in a way that differs from public opinion? What do they
know that the public does not? What is the meaning of democracy if the
public will is to be ignored?

[010]
National Flag Gate (09/04/2007) (PCPOP)
At the IAAF World Championships in Osaka, Liu Xiang won the gold medal in
the men's high hurdles. What does he get from the Chinese
netizens? A tsunami of complaints about how he handled the national
flag that was handed over to him after he was first to cross the finish
line. Watch for yourself ...
http://player.youku.com/player.php/sid/XNzk5MDA5Ng==/v.swf

[009] A
Case of Plagiarism (09/04/2007) (Wenxue
City, ReporterHome) Zhang Chaocang was the general manager/party secretary
at the Anhui Provincial Energy Resources Group. On July 11, he tried
in the Fuyang City Middle Court on charges of corruption and
bribe-taking. Between 1989 and 2006, Zhang Chaocang took more than
2,780,000 yuan in bribes. At the end of the trial, the previously
silent Zhang Chaocang took out this reading glasses and read out a four-page
letter of confession with tears in this eyes.

Here is the opening portion of that confession:

There are many reasons why I ended on the
path of corruption, but the main reason was subjective in nature.

I am the son of farmers. The Party
sent me to university for education and then they sent me to the county for
training. Once I got in the leadership position, the promotions, posts
and accomplishments caused me to feel arrogant. I thought my
accomplishments were due to my ability. When I do someone a favor, I
think that they owe me. With such twisted thinking, I began with
taking presents during festivals and holidays and I took monetary gifts
until things got totally out of hand.

Since I was in a critical job post, I held
the power in my hands and I could get things done on my say-so. Many
people come to me for help, and plenty of people clamber and pursue me for
favors. Slowly, I forgot all about party discipline and state
laws. Under the influence of friends, I became bolder and
bolder. By that time, I had no sense of party discipline left. I
only wanted to get something for myself, and I was never inhibited by party
discipline or state laws. The law is merciless and fair. I am
very sorry now, but it is too late.

Yes, but so what? The reporter from
<Procuratorial Daily News> discovered that Zhang Chaocang's confession
had a great deal of similarity with the letter of confession published on May
29, 2007 in <Procuratorial Daily News> by Longquan Station, Chengdu,
Sichuan former party secretary Zhu Fuzhong. The similarities were beyond
chance alone. In other words, this was an act of plagiarism.

It was believed that the detention center has a subscription to
<Procuratorial Daily News> and Zhang Chaocang must have seen Zhu's
letter. When Zhang's turn came to stand trial, he appropriated certain
sections of Zhu's letter. It may be that Zhang felt a resonance with
Zhu's experience and really felt that same way. Still, if Zhang Chaocang
was truly contrite, he should not have plagiarized someone else's letter of
confession. Worst yet, Zhang has been caught for doing it.

Some commentators have noted that these confessions were empty talk filled
with clichιs. This is certain true for some of them. If these
corrupt officials are always so full of love for the Party and the masses, how
could they have gone into corruption in the first place?

[008] The Standard
Goes Free (09/04/2007) (The
Standard) The Standard, will switch to
free circulation next Monday ... Initially,
120,000 copies will be distributed daily at more than 80 high- traffic
points in the main business districts, including Central, Western,
Admiralty, Wan Chai, Causeway Bay, Quarry Bay, and Tsim Sha Tsui.
Copies will also go to commercial buildings, residential areas, schools and
universities, four- and five-star hotels, airlines and sports clubs, as well
as locations in Macau. The Standard's switch follows the introduction
of two free Chinese papers by the parent company. Headline Daily is the
largest-circulating free newspaper in Hong Kong at 700,000 copies, while
Express Post is the top free weekend paper at more than 300,000 copies.

Q1. Which do you think is the right schedule to implement universal
suffrage for the election of the Chief Executive?52.8%: 2012
21.5%: 2017
17.3%: after 2017
8.4%: Don't know/hard to say

Q2. If Beijing thinks that 2017 is better for universal suffrage for the
election of the Chief Executive, will you accept delaying until 2017? (Base:
Those 427 persons who answered 2012 in Q1 above) 8.4%:Totally unacceptable
26.0%: Unacceptable
60.2%: Acceptable
1.2%: Totally acceptable
4.2%: Don't know/hard to say

Q3. Which do you think is the right schedule to implement universal
suffrage for electing the Legislative Council?39.5%: 2012 in one step
36.5%: 2016 in phases
16.1%: after 2016 in phases
7.9%: Don't know/hard to say

Q8. Concerning the reform of the political system in Hong Kong, do
you agree that the Beijing central government has constitutional power (that
is, the ultimate power to decide)? 3.1%: Completely disagree
22.6%: Disagree
56.2%: Agree
12.4%: Compltetely agree
5.7% Don't know/hard to say

[006] Burn,
Baby, Burn! (09/04/2007) (TVBS)
In Kaohsiung, a civic organization that was unhappy with the American
government's opposition to Taiwan's attempt to enter the United Nations went
to demonstrate at the local office of the American Institute in
Taiwan. They stomped on the American flag and set it on fire.

The protestors chanted: "Taiwan nation! Taiwan nation!
Taiwan nation!" In total, there were 12 demonstrators who were
called to action by the local underground radio stations. The
underground radio stations called out: "Surround the American Institute
in Taiwan office! Come, come, come! See how the American flag
gets stomped upon. Come, come come!" They were faced with
more than 200 police officers armed with batons and handguns.
Nevertheless, the protestors chanted: "Yes! Yes! Burn!
Burn!"

Then the police raised the warning sign for the protestors to
disperse. Faced with the overwhelming odds, the demonstrators left
reluctantly. On this day, the American Institute of Taiwan was closed
on account of the Labor Day holiday in the USA (note: the first Monday of
September). Therefore, the only persons inconvenienced were the 200
plus police officers on duty at the location.

[005] Ah-Bian
Would Not Stop(09/04/2007) In Comment
200709#002, Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian said that more than 70%
of Taiwan judges and prosecutors are 'blue' and incapable of telling right
from wrong. Therefore, he would refuse to resign if a guilty verdict
is returned in the state secret fees case even though he had previously
promised to do so.

Obviously, the judiciary sector has been extremely unhappy about his
accusation from the supreme leader of the nation, but what can they do
except to whine?

(TVBS)
On this day, the Government Information Office Minister Shieh Jhy-Wey
announced at a press conference that all law officials had better publicly
declare their party affiliation! "In any case that involves
poltiical figures, the judges and prosecutors must announce publicly their
political party affiliation (or lack thereof). Otherwise, their
judgments will be quesioned no matter how fair they are."

Reporter: "Will your action invoke suspicion that this is the executive
branch interfering with the judiciial branch?"
Shieh: "I do not accept the notion of interference with the
judiciary."

The atmosphere became somewhat tense over the debate. Shieh said:
"This has nothing whatsoever to do with the point made by President
Chen. We are asking the Nationalist Party to publish their membership
list within the judiciary from the period of the martial law. This has
nothing to do with the law. It is related to fairness and justice
during the transitional period."

Recently, a video has been very popular at
the various big Internet forums: due to a slight, more than 20 Mazda 6
sedans surrounded a Hummer on the Ningbo-Lianyungang Expressway and forced
it to go at the slow speed of 30 kph for ten minutes until the Hummer
sounded its police siren. This video caused a storm as condemnations
came in. Some netizens initiated an Internet hunt and published the
names and mobile phone numbers of the Mazda 6 owners.

After watching this video, I had to laugh:
What is the big deal? At most, this is a spat on the expressway among
car downers. If traffic rules were broken, the case should be referred
to the traffic department and that was it. Why are there rivers of
Internet saliva? Why did this get raised to the level of Internet
violence where confidential information was published for no reason?

According to traditional standards, the
incident and the reporting were both not very meaningful. It is a
waste of time. But this did not affect its ability to become the
center of a discussion that you cannot help but pay attention to.

In a diversified society, meaningless
incidents can have unimaginable impact through the Internet -- the
participants wil use a meaningless incident to express their own sentiments
without paying too much attention to the incident itself.

In the case of the "Mazda 6's PK
Hummer" incident, it is no longer important whether the drivers were
right or wrong. The important fact is that the Mazda 6's and the
Hummer gave people a perfect reason to vent: Look, these rich people flaunt
their wealth on the expressway, they abuse their wealth, they deserve to be
cursed, they deserve to die! Here, people are no longer cursing the
specific individuals in this case, but they are cursing the abstract class
of "rich people."

The grand background of this unbalanced
mindset is the rich-poor gap in society. Those people who feel that
their interests had been damaged in the past are looking for an opportunity
to vent. Therefore, a minor matter such as the Mazda's laying siege to
a Hummer became the excuse for a war of words.

It is interesting that if you observe
carefully, then the people who are cursing most vehemently are not the
socially vulnerable people. Instead, white collar workers and private
company owners are just as angry. A certain private company owners
wrote: "I don't want see anyone with more money that I have. If I
don't like it, I will start cursing. I will curse out everyone that I
don't like ..."

"Cursing out everyone" reflets
the anxiety and uncertainty during the transitional era. The
"Mazda 6's PK Hummer" affair is a live example that directly
revealed the irrational mindset from the social problems. These types
of emotions are spreading and we should take about how to treat them.
"Cursing out everyone" does not solve any problems and is bad for
the construction of a harmonious society.

[003] Shi
Jing (Jessica)'s Blog? (09/02/2007) In the matter of the
nude photographs of the Electrolux office lady (see White Collar Photo Gate),
there is a blog purportedly by the principal Jessica
Shi Jing. Here is the Q&A:

Q1. Were you the person in the
photographs on the Internet?
A. No. The face is mine, but the body is not mine. I have asked
friends in Japan to look up the real person on the Japanese Internet or
photo alumbs. I don't feel that they were very good with their
Photoshop work.

Q2. Did you participate in any part of this
affair?
A. No. Someone might have mentioned that they would make me
famous. But I never imagined that I could be famous through these
perverted photographs.

Q3; Someone said that you are putting an
act with Electrolux?
A: Yes, this affair has made Electrolux famous. But is this a positive
influence for the brand value?

Q4. What are you doing right now?
Will you accept interviews?
A: I am overseas where I will begin my studies immediately. Since I am
not the principal in the nude photographs, I have nothing to rebuke.
You can use photoshop to put any movie star into any photograph. Of
course, I am not a movie star, so they took my photographs to do this.
Nobody would leave it if it were a movie star.

Q5. Can you describe your place of origin
and education?
A: All the Internet stuff are lies. They are all wrong. My
confidential stuff is still secure.

Q6. Has any brand asked you to become the
spokesperson? How much do you charge?
A: I have no intention of being a spokesperson for any brand or company,
including Electrolux.

Q7. Some reporters say that you leaked the
photographs yourself?
A: Throughout the process, not a single reporter interviewed me. In
China, the reporters only know how to make up fake news and then they spin
the fake news around and around.

Q8. Why did you suddenly start a blog at
icxo.com?
A: I did it in order to be able to counterattack. I am a manager, and
so I set up a blog at icxo.com. This is my one (and only) personal
webpage.

Q9. Since the character in the nude
photographs is not you, will you pursue the person(s) responsible?
A: I will. One part of the action plan is shown in the fact that it is
very hard to search for the photographs in China now.

In the comments to this blog, some netizens
do not believe her assertion about the Photoshop job. Within the series
to totally nude photograhs are some in which Shi Jing stood in front of a
mirror, so that she appears twice. It would be immensely difficult for a
Photoshop master to come up with two headshots that match so
perfectly.
(the red bars were imposed for the sake of 'decency' -- whatever that means)

Yesterday, President Chen Shui-bian was
interviewed on a television program and said that "it was
bullshit" to say that the judiciary is not interfering with the
upcoming presidential election. He also thought that more than 70% or
80% of the judges are 'blue.' In the past, President Chen Shui-bian
had said that he would resign if the state secret case should result in a
guilty verdict in the first trial. But if the judiciary is not
independent and detached, knows only political colors and ignores right and
wrong, he "obviously needs to reconsider."

Yesterday, President Chen Shui-bian was
interviews by SETV on the program "Talking Show 大話新聞"
and he expressed strong doubts about the judiciary in Taiwan.
Concerning the presiding judge Tsai Shou-hsun in the state secret fees case
and the Ma Ying-jeou special fees case, the program host Cheng Hung-yi asked
whether Tsai was tainted by politics. President Chen answered that
many people are critical: "I don't know him so I cannot comment.
But I have lots of question marks."

The host brought up the claim that 70% or
80% of the judges and prosecutors are 'blue.' Does the President
agree? President replied: "I think that the number is even
higher." When the judiciary reaches this state and more and more
people feel that the judiciary only sees 'color' instead of right or wrong,
it is the sorrow for the nation.

The host then asked, "Do you think
that the judiciary is interfering with this election?" President
Chen said: "It would be bullshit to say that they are not."
If a few members of the judiciary can act as referees to decide for the
people just who is qualified or unqualified to be elected, then there is not
point to even bother with the election. He emphasized that he is not
criticizing the judiciary, but the judiciary has to command respect.
The people in the judiciary must respect the law instead of raising doubts
among people.

You didn't think that he would really keep
that promise, did you?

[001] Car
License Plate Number 牛B74110
(09/01/2007) (Southern
Metropolis Daily) In Nanjing, a traffic police was patrolling
the streets when he spotted a yellow van going down a pedestrian
street. Therefore, he immediately ordered the van driver to
stop. First, he asked for and checked the driver's license. Then
he asked for the vehicle registration. The driver said, "I didn't
bring it. I"ll do that the next time." Then he started
the van and wanted to drive away. The policeman ordered the driver to
stop the engine. Then the police went up front to look at the license
plate number and was stunned to find the hand-drawn letters '牛B74110'
(which reads 牛B，气死110
and translates as "Awesome! This will infuriate the police (note:
whose emergency telephone number is 110)."
According to the explanation of the driver, the vehicle belonged to a
hometown friend who spent almost 20,000 yuan to buy it but never bothered to
register in order to save money. The car had been used exclusive to
drive within the Red Sun Decoration Town for delivery. He was bored
and used paint to write down '牛B74110'
based upon Internet language. On this day, there was a problem with
starting the engine and therefore he drove the car outside the Decoration
Town to a garage for fixing. But he was unfortunate to be stopped by a
traffic policeman. The police has impounded the vehicle, pending
completion of the required paper work.